


like earth after rain

by butbythegrace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Absent Parent, Alpha Roy, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biting, Blood, Cesarean Section, Childbirth, Established Relationship, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Ed, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Sexual Content, character disappearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2019-10-06 06:58:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butbythegrace/pseuds/butbythegrace
Summary: The ability for male omegas to carry a pregnancy had phased out generations ago.It would have been nice to know Ed's father was over four hundred years old.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone who's been through the other-worldly experience of pregnancy and fumbling through parenthood, I Approve This Trope™. I approve it so much I'm here to haunt the fandom with it. Enjoy.
> 
> To those who encouraged this: you know who you are, and I hope you’re happy. <3
> 
> This will have an ’03 base with elements of Brotherhood. Just nod and smile. Reproductive knowledge will be a little advanced so just keep nodding and smiling. During this era most pregnancies were still overseen by a midwife and most babies born at home, so Ed’s experience is not going to be the norm, to say the least. I don’t want to scare anyone off with too many things you Never Needed To Know and am going to try to find a happy balance of information, so please let me know how you think that’s going.
> 
> Ed is 17 at the beginning of this, 16 at the beginning of their relationship. Just a heads up if that's not your cuppa tea.
> 
> The birth will be a c-section, traumatic but not graphic, and everyone will be fine. I'll place a warning in the chapter so you can breeze over that if you'd like.
> 
> As far as how long this will be, I'm not quite sure yet. I'm set on instant gratification so I had to get this chapter out rightnow. But I'll be fleshing out the rest of it and should have a number by the time the next chapter is ready.
> 
> And…I think that’s it. Oh, and I’m not sorry. Like, at all. :D

 

 

**july.**

They’ve been keeping an eye out for Ed’s seasonal heat, and like all the ones before it, this one arrives right on time.

He’s been nesting for a couple days now, and is on edge all afternoon, cleaning and pacing and hyperaware of Roy’s presence. Roy might know this because he’s been purposefully brushing up against Ed’s boundaries all day, gauging his reactions to the fleeting contact laced with feigned innocence on his behalf. He performs these tests flying under Al’s radar, though, because while Al is a very forgiving person to live with, he also has his limits, and one happens to be his brother moaning in common areas.

So while Al doesn’t see Ed’s pupils dilate when Roy speaks a few pitches lower, or notice him shiver when Roy touches his elbow, nor can he smell the shift in Ed’s scent, Ed’s general behavior is so suspect that Al has already packed his bag – which involves loading three to five books into a leather satchel – and plans on heading to Gracia’s after dinner. This is the routine, every few months.

The brothers have lived in Roy’s home for nearly a year now, though the start of his and Ed’s heat partnership is even older than that, stemming from Ed’s stubborn need to overcome his heats as quickly as possible and Roy’s inability to turn him down, which had predictably gone awry, as so many heat partnerships do. The brothers moved in shortly after the alpha-omega pair marked one another, which Al had accepted with the irritated grace of someone who knew it was inevitable from the beginning.

Roy suspects Al is grateful to no longer be solely responsible for the walking trouble time bomb his sibling is.

Getting his own room may have also helped smooth any ruffled feathers.

Roy had to clear out his office and cram it into the study to make it happen, but it was well worth witnessing Al’s excitement and content. It was a bright room with built in bookcases and, best of all, on a different floor and opposite end of the house from the master suite. But knowing there’s only so much protection from noise that distance can offer – and to keep his sanity – Al seeks company at Gracia’s during his omega brother’s heats.

Despite not being able to eat he does typically like to spend dinner with them, especially when he knows he won’t be returning home for a day or two. They’re waiting for the stew to finish simmering, Roy standing watch and giving it the occasional stir while the brothers sit at the table.

Al's satchel rests on the floor against a table leg and he has a book in hand. He isn’t reading though, he’s watching Ed desecrate bread loaf number one. It hadn’t taken Roy long to learn to always have two loaves of bread available whenever Ed is concerned.

Al sighs. “I’ve witnessed this all my life and I’ve become desensitized. My brother unhinges his jaw and swallows an entire loaf of bread, and I don’t even blink.”

Ed snags another piece of bread with his automail hand. Roy’s going to be shaking crumbs out of their bed sheets for days. Luckily he’s going be changing them plenty anyway.

“You can’t blink,” Ed points out.

Al lets his book fall and leans just a bit forward, the one-inch glare. “Rude.”

“Sorry,” Ed says around a mouthful. “I’m hormonal.”

“You’re not even. You’re just rude.”

“Pft. Guess I’m getting my own water.”

Al picks his book back up. “Pity.”

Ed glares and crams the rest of his bread into his mouth. He makes a big show of standing, complete with screeching chair legs, and walking over to the sink, accompanied by a suspiciously musical automail foot. Al continues to ignore him as he fills himself a glass of water.

Roy looks at Al, buried in his book, then back at Ed, drinking down his glass; the shape of his shoulders in his tank top, his ass in those shorts. Roy looks at Al again – still reading – and back to Ed, who’s setting his glass in the sink. He’s still watching as Ed turns and starts to walk past.

It would be so easy to just-

Roy stretches his neck and sets his shoulders and Ed’s reaction to the alpha posturing is immediate, his joints turning to rubber as he sinks down, baring his throat and audibly whimpering. Roy hadn’t expected that strong of a response, but Ed is clearly well into his preheat.

Al’s head pops up and he points at them accusingly.

“Animals, the both of you,” he declares in disapproval.

This does little to dissuade Ed, who’s starting to look sleepy and flushed with the fever. He languidly brushes his cheek across Roy’s chest and starts to purr.

Roy swallows down a low growl because Al is still staring at them. He holds his hand up and Ed eagerly pushes his face against his palm.

“It’s fascinating how close our instincts and biological drives are to those of primitive animals, isn’t it?” Roy muses, trying to hide the strain in his voice and only failing a little bit.

“At least most of us aren’t cannibalistic,” is Al's reply, because apparently what’s happening before him is sorted into the same unappealing behavioral category as something ingesting its own species.

Roy can feel Ed’s grin against his palm, the fleeting scrape of a canine on the heel of his wrist.

“Nah,” Ed agrees. “We just momentarily can’t think about anything other than a good fuck.”

Al slams his book shut. “Ugh. I’m leaving.” He swiftly jams the book in his satchel and stands, shouldering his bag.

“See ya kid,” Ed says with a wave and cocky grin. “Wish me luck!”

“No,” Al says flatly as he clanks out of the kitchen.

“Send Gracia and Elicia my love,” Roy calls as he trails his hands down Ed’s sides. Ed hums and sways into his touch.

“Will do!” Al pips.

The front door opens and closes, and Roy wraps his arms around Ed’s middle and gently pulls him closer, flush against his front.

“My own brother likes you more than me,” Ed pouts. He really is a little hormonal, not that Roy will point it out.

“He’s just relieved you’re now also my problem.”

“I’ve been your problem since-”

"Please don't say it."

And thankfully, Ed doesn't. It's taken Roy some time to get over the guilt of their age difference, even with the constant reassurance from both brothers. Ed when they first met and Ed when their relationship began were two very distinct creatures, even with just six years between them.

"'m right though," Ed murmurs.

“Yes," Roy agrees. "But now I’ve more or less accepted the position on a 24/7 basis.”

They sway together for a moment and Roy brushes his cheek against Ed’s neck, dangerously close to his bond mark.

Ed whines, so soft it’s more of a rush of breath than anything, and he presses his ass against Roy’s crotch. Roy longs to grind against him, to put his teeth to Ed’s shoulder, but he knows it isn’t the time. It’s more important to make sure Ed gets a decent meal and rest in him before this multi-day endurance test consumes their lives.

Ed whines again, this time in complaint as Roy peels himself away. But a bowl of stew under his nose is enough to change his tune.

 

 

The next morning Roy wakes before his alarm, his body buzzing with a surge of protective instinct. Beside him, Ed stirs.

Roy leans up on his elbow, just far enough to catch and analyze Ed’s scent, and to swipe his cheek over the top of his blond head. He presses a kiss to Ed’s temple and the omega whines, his skin too warm and tacky, his scent sweet. Sweat glistens in the hollow of his throat. It will be tonight.

Roy huffs and presses another kiss to Ed’s forehead before peeling himself away, and rising.

He goes through his usual routine while making sure Ed’s day will be as simple as possible. He lays out a fresh towel, fresh clothes. He makes lunch for himself to take to work, as well as extra for Ed, and leaves a pitcher of water in the fridge to cool.

He arrives to work right on the dot and takes a coded call to Gracia’s to update Al on the situation, and that himself or maybe even Ed would call again in a day or two. Sometimes it took a couple days for the heat to settle in, but this would be a quick one. He has a feeling Ed will be well into it by the time the work day is over.

They’re fortunate this time; Ed’s heat will fall on a weekend. While Roy has more than enough sick leave to make up for the cost of Ed’s heats, it’s always favorable to not have to hear the knowing, disappointed voice of Hawkeye over the phone. While the rest of the team remains clueless, he’s sure she knows. She always does.

So while it would be preferable for him to spend the day at home, making sure Ed is comfortable and well cared for as his heat really settles in, Roy will avoid it where possible. And Ed – bless him – is supportive. Because he, quote, isn’t a pussy, and it isn’t like he can’t put up with a few hours of fucking himself on his own fingers, and if Roy would like, he’ll set up the phonograph to record just what that sounds like.

Roy loves preheat Ed. He's the filthiest of them all.

Hawkeye – wonderful, frightening, all-knowing Hawkeye – lets them all leave an hour early. Roy pretends to not notice her watching as he makes it out the door before anyone else.

He signs a car out for himself, which is probably isn't the safest decision considering his eagerness to get home, but he makes it there in one piece just the same. He pauses on his front porch to take off his uniform jacket. Ed isn’t going to give him a moment to breathe, let alone remove his clothes without difficulty or damage.

As soon as he steps inside, Ed is on him. He’s still clothed in a tank top and boxers, his hair in a hightail, his skin blazing and slick with sweat. He scrabbles up Roy’s body like the face of a cliff, hooking his arms around Roy’s neck and surging up to bite at his mouth.

The jacket hits the floor, already forgotten.

Roy could growl, could use his alpha voice and posture to force Ed into submission, but he loves Ed like this, wild and unhinged. Instead of demanding Ed calms down, Roy holds him and lets him do as he pleases, Ed’s ministrations quick and sharp between his panted breaths. His lips trail from Roy’s mouth to his ear to his neck, gentle but still with a razor’s edge. He’s hard against Roy’s thigh and Roy can’t imagine how wet he is.

His scent permeates the house but it’s sweetest at its source, and with Ed offering his neck, Roy greedily takes it in. He longs to mouth at that soft spot behind Ed’s ear, to taste him, but there’s no way they’ll make it to the bedroom if he does. He forces himself to pull back and breathe through his mouth. But Ed’s entire game is enticement, and it only encourages him to try harder.

Roy runs a soothing hand down Ed’s back, slow and sure against his frantic, demanding movements. “Hello sweetheart,” he greets huskily. Ed’s pheromones have brought out the alpha voice anyway, and Ed shivers at the pitch drop. “How are you?”

“Fucking miserable, you bastard,” Ed breathes against his neck. “Get us upstairs and fuck me.” He latches his legs around Roy’s hips, purring as he brushes his face over Roy’s throat again and again.

Roy obliges, carrying him up the stairs and to their room, laying them both down on the bed. He lets Ed keep ahold of him as he undoes his belt and gets everything from the waist down far enough down his legs to kick it all off. His shirt will have to stay for now. It’s getting harder to think, and he needs to- he needs-

Ed’s head lolls to the side because he _knows_ , and finally, _finally_ Roy puts his mouth to Ed’s scent gland and sucks. Ed’s body jerks in response, a noise bubbling in his chest that sounds like a mix of misery and desperation. He tastes as sweet as he smells, and Roy’s body sings in response to the scent that has only ever been for him.

Ed writhes and whines, grinding up against the body over his own and Roy ruts down to meet him, biting his lip, arms shaking as he holds back. He can't lose his coherency, not yet. Getting Ed's clothes off is near impossible because he’s so far gone he has no interest in helping Roy whatsoever, like he’s absolutely fine making it work as-is, barriers be damned.

Roy eventually does succeed though, getting Ed’s tank off first, leaving it to hang snagged in the crook of his automail elbow in favor of running a hand down the solid expanse of his torso. He’s so _hot_ , just burning, skin flushed and golden and absolutely electric underneath his fingertips, arching up into his touch. Roy runs his hand from Ed's belly to his neck and when Ed arches up again, Roy slips his boxers down with his free hand.

Ed, somehow, has enough coherency to slip his flesh leg out of them and that’s good enough. They, too, hang forgotten in the pinch point of his automail knee.

Roy presses his palm over Ed’s cock, flushed and leaking, and Ed cries out, rolling his hips into the offered friction.

Roy lets his hips rock a few times before sliding that hand further down and back. Ed’s face contorts into several, quickly successive expressions, conflicted about the touch leaving his cock but headed in the direction of something more promising.

Roy slides his fingers against him and Ed moans and pushes back against that feather light touch. He’s got slick everywhere and takes three of Roy’s fingers with ease, throwing his head back and grinding down on Roy’s hand with an animalistic cry.

“Is this how you want to come first?” Roy asks. He probably should have rolled his sleeves up, but at this point the shirt is doomed anyway.

“No,” Ed gasps, still rolling his hips, slow but rough. “Fuck me. Knot me. Fuck.” He punctuates each demand with a sharp snap of his hips.

“God Edward,” Roy pants. “Fucking yourself on my fingers and begging for my knot.”

Ed growls and Roy growls back, but Ed doesn’t back down. Roy’s never met another omega like him and god, he loves him.

“Now is _not_ the time for your kinky bullshit.”

Roy surges his fingers forward and hooks them viciously. Ed arches his back with a scream, then dissolves into a puddle of sobs and curses as Roy rubs at that spot, swollen with Ed’s heat.

“Oh god oh fuck-”

“You were saying?”

“Please don’t make me come like this just _fuck_ me-”

Roy scrapes his teeth over a nipple and Ed yelps and glares. Roy smirks.

"You'll have to let go long enough for me to get into the drawer."

Ed groans and thrashes his head back and forth. "Don't fuckin' bother, just this once," he pleads. "Please, please, just once."

The smell of Ed's desperation is enough to convince him. Condoms haven't been a thing in their relationship since they'd bonded. At least, outside of their heats and ruts. Male pregnancy hadn't been something to worry about for generations, so to them, condoms were no longer about safety, just a luxury to keep the mess of heats and ruts to a minimum. They'll be better prepared for the next round, and all of those after.

Roy slips his fingers free and hooks his arms under Ed’s legs, pulling Ed’s ass up onto his thighs. He takes some of Ed’s own slick to coat his cock while Ed rolls his eyes.

“Fucking perv. Y’just like listening to me beg,” he complains as Roy lines himself up.

Roy smirks. “Can you blame me?” he asks, and then pushes the head of his cock in. From there he can’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. Ed’s heat pulls him in; tight, hot, and slick.

“Ahhhhh god,” Ed groans, hands scrabbling at Roy’s thighs, which are dripping in his own slick.

Roy gasps as he bottoms out but digs his toes into the sheets, hips still seeking deeper and Ed keens, long and beautiful, his body taut and trembling. He’s so hot around Roy’s cock, clenching and shaking as Roy keeps fucking gently into him.

“How much of a warm up do you need, old man?” Ed grits between clenched teeth, wiggling his hips as his heels climb up the back of Roy’s thighs.

“Enough to keep me from knotting you right this second,” Roy rasps in his ear, and Ed makes a wounded noise, hands twisting in the sheets, cock throbbing between their bellies. There's a sizable damp patch at the front of Roy's shirt but he still can't be bothered with it. It's far too late.

“Fuck, just do it," Ed sobs. " _Fu-u-uck_ , you’re killing me, I need it, I need your knot, fucking tie me, fuck-”

Roy loves him like this, wild and unfiltered, moaning like the beautiful bitch in heat he is. And he is so lovely, and patient, and they have so much longer to go, so Roy complies. Ed's knees still hooked over his elbows, his own shirt and Ed's boxers providing some protection against the pinch point of Ed's knee, Roy fucks him hard and fast. The headboard hits the wall while Ed sobs and claws at the sheets under him.

It isn’t long before Roy can feel the swell of his knot and they both gasp at the pressure. With three more deep, quick thrusts, he presses in, and stays.

Ed’s spine arches taut and he freezes, hovering at the edge, teeth clenched and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Roy bows over to place his teeth to Ed’s bond mark. They’ve bitten one another plenty of times, but their marks are their first, the ones that bonded and bound them together.

“Please,” Ed gasps, arching his neck against Roy’s teeth, his entire body quivering. And Roy bites.

Ed wails and slams his head back into the mattress, coming heavy and wet between them. There’s something slightly different about his scent this time. It’s still sweet, but earthy too, like the air after a storm, and it makes Roy follow him instantly, coming _hard_ , jaw clamping like a vice.

Ed sobs through the pain and the hormones but for the most part has finally gone lax, his heat relieved for the time being as Roy continues to fuck into him, following the ripples of their shared orgasms.

Eventually Roy stills, panting, breathing through his teeth and the blood spilling between them. Ed hisses with a flinch when they disengage, but Roy hasn’t the capacity to comfort him. He presses his forehead to Ed’s shoulder below the mark. His cock continues to answer the chorus of Ed’s sweet, near gasping whines, and he rides that high until he comes down enough to listen to his screaming alpha instincts.

Ed groans hoarsely when Roy gently lifts and bends his automail leg, crossing it over his lap so that they can lay on their sides while they stay tied, Ed’s back to Roy’s front. Ed shivers and whimpers and Roy holds him close, rubbing soothing circles into his hip.

“You were so good,” Roy says softly, and a full body tremor wracks Ed’s frame. “So wonderful for me.”

Ed’s exhausted but his body responds to the praise anyway, making him jerk and grind down on Roy’s knot and curse. “Fuck. Christ. Can you stop doing that.”

Roy laughs softly. “Sorry.”

“You are not.”

“I meant no harm. You are just so lovely.”

Goosebumps bloom on Ed’s skin. “Watch it, Mustang,” he warns.

Roy kisses his spine, then trails his lips over to the bite wound at Ed’s shoulder. He begins to gently clean away the blood, alternating between sucking on the spot and wiping it clean. Ed’s shivers fade and his breathing evens, and he barely stirs from his sated, hormone-induced doze when Roy is finally able to pull out. He gently untangles the clothing still caught in Ed's automail and then unbuttons his own shirt, folding any offensive material inside and pillowing it under Ed’s head, then sets about cleaning them up.

When he finishes, he barely manages to coax Ed to drink some water before the next wave hits. Ed rides him until he sees stars, but his nose is overloaded with the smell of flora, fauna, and the earth they’re born from.

 

 

**august.**

It isn’t easy to hide a relationship, especially a bonded one, and they’ve had a few close calls, but they manage well enough.

It’s a known fact that the Flame and Fullmetal Alchemists share a residence, but on paper it’s purely for convenience. Omegas in the barracks are near unheard of; partially to keep the rowdy young alphas focused, and partially for their own safety. There’s only so much protection scent patches can offer, especially when they need to come off sooner rather than later, lest the omega wants to experience damage to their scent glands. It just made sense for Ed, especially being as young as he was, to move in to the home of a trusted member of his military pack.

Little did the military know, they let a fox guard the chicken coop, and this amused Ed to no end. It wasn't that the higher ups were stupid for trusting them. It was that their relationship being anything other than what it appeared to be was too implausible to even consider. Aside from their public spats, the fact that Ed had at least attempted to stay in the dorms - not to mention Al moving in with them as well - helped their platonic image immensely.

But just because they live together doesn’t mean they can strut around smelling so strongly of one another, so descenting is a necessary evil. He and Ed have had plenty of time to get used to it, but it’s still distressing to scrub themselves into a blank slate whenever they leave the house, so reconnecting once they’re home for the evening is one of the most important parts of their day. It’s also when Ed’s scent is at its strongest, the patches forcing his glands to concentrate their pheromones. When Ed peels them off it’s enough to make Roy dizzy, and it almost makes up for not being able to smell him for the entire day. Almost.

It’s during this usual evening scenting that Roy catches a fresh whiff of what he’d smelled during Ed’s heat. He wonders if Ed is going to have an irregular cycle, or if he’s possibly taken ill.

“Are you feeling alright? Your scent is off,” Roy murmurs, burying his face into the hair behind Ed’s ear, chasing the aroma that he isn’t sure how to categorize. After that initial rush, it isn’t strong at all, intertwining so subtly with Ed’s own scent that it’s difficult to discern, but it _is_ there, he’s sure.

“Feelin’ fine,” Ed assures him. Though he would normally flinch away from such a thorough investigation of his scent, he tucks his face into Roy’s neck, and lets him.

Despite his denial, for the next few days Ed does not seem fine. He’s off, and exhausted. And then one evening he leaps from the couch and is out of the room before his book even hits the floor.

Al has his own book in his hands and Roy the paper spread over his lap, but they just look at one another while listening to Edward dry heave in the bathroom down the hall.

“I thought his scent was off,” Roy tells him.

“He’s been acting off too,” Al says. “Slower. I think he’s coming down with something.”

“Seeing as he’s coating the toilet in bile, I’d hazard to agree.”

It was Sunday, and Ed hadn’t eaten anything at all, which was absolutely unheard of for a day off. He really must be sick.

Al sighs. “I told him that street vendor was suspect. Better watch yourself and let me take care of him though.” He closes his book and sets in on the coffee table, then stands.

Something pulls in his stomach and Roy wants to protest. _He_ should be the one to take care of Ed, to hold his hair back and rub circles on his flesh shoulder while murmuring words to soothe him. But he knows Al is probably right.

“I’ll put the kettle on for tea,” Roy offers instead. “Ginger might help settle his stomach.”

“That would be great, thanks.” Al hulks gently down the hall and to the bathroom, where Roy hears the door creak open, followed by Al’s hushed voice and Ed’s answering groan.

He goes to the kitchen and fills the kettle, setting it to boil. They’re running low on ginger tea, and he makes note to buy more. They’ll be needing plenty, though he’s not sure why he reasons this.

Perhaps it’s some sort of premonition, because Ed’s ailment continues for the next few weeks. Some days he’s perfectly fine, if only a little pickier about his food than usual. Others he barely holds on to his water and lives on buttery egg noodles.

He also starts scenting Roy constantly. Which would be weird, except for that Roy finds himself doing the exact same thing. He thinks it’s because Ed’s scent is still peculiar and he’s subconsciously trying to fix it. It’s not getting louder, but it’s starting to define. Roy hopes whatever he’s come down with will crest soon.

 

 

**september.**

When Roy returns home from the office, Ed is curled up on the couch under a thick knit blanket for the third evening in a row, his head pillowed on Al’s steel thigh. It doesn’t look very comfortable, but Roy supposes it isn’t necessarily physical comfort Ed is seeking.

Al moves to cradle Ed’s head with a single large hand, as if planning to move and allow Roy full access his brother, but Roy motions for him to stay. It's clear that Al is who he wants. Ed doesn’t stir, just snuggles deeper into his blanket, tucking himself even closer to Al.

Roy is so eager to make it over to Ed he doesn’t even remove his boots at the door. “How has he been?” he asks quietly as he kneels in front of the couch.

“Dry heaving in fits all afternoon,” Al replies, his whisper barely echoing in the armor. “He’s been dozing for about an hour.”

Ed is normally on high alert for Roy’s return, but his eyes don’t even flicker until Roy brushes the bangs out of his face. His skin is clammy and sallow, and for the first time Roy can remember Ed doesn’t push his face into his offered palm. He just stares back with exhausted golden eyes.

Roy can smell him without even leaning in and he still just…doesn’t smell right. Like wet pavement, or a rainforest.

Roy has been grateful for scent patches since the beginning of this ordeal. It’s unsettling when others are able to tell exactly what you’re going through with just a sniff, so it’s nice that the patches have afforded Ed privacy from the world around him. But Roy thinks Ed has relied on them to hide this for too long now.

“I think you ought to go to the doctor, love,” Roy tells him gently.

Ed opens his mouth to protest, but Al lays a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“I think Roy is right, Brother,” Al says from above them. He’d long ago given up calling Roy the colonel, bless him.

Ed’s jaw works. He won’t meet Roy’s eyes, just stares at the pins on his uniform jacket.

“I think I’ve run myself ragged,” Ed finally says.

Roy looks up to meet Al’s gaze. Did he hear that correctly?

Al’s helmet tilts down as he eyes his brother in what can only be disbelief. “Did…did you really just say that?” he asks, because Al is brave and the only one of the two of them who has proven to best Ed in a fight.

“You know how I treated my automail recovery,” Ed snaps, the most heat they've seen from him in days. And with his recovery crammed into one third of the time it should have been, neither of them can argue that Ed has pushed his limits for years. “And every winter is hell anyway. I think my body is just fucking exhausted and knows what’s coming and it’s warning me to chill out. So maybe I just- need to do that. Take some time off. The whole winter, maybe.”

“That's...not a bad idea,” Al says slowly, clearly as put off by this sudden revelation as Roy is.

Roy strokes his fingers through Ed’s bangs. Ed doesn’t move, doesn’t purr, just closes his eyes and sighs.

“I find it strange that you’re okay with this,” Roy says carefully. He doesn’t want Ed to get worked up. Stress is the last thing he needs right now.

But Ed has never so willingly stayed in one spot. More than once he’d left the hospital when the doctors had recommended him not to, so for him to independently come to and accept this conclusion makes Roy uncomfortable, to say the least.

Ed shrugs helplessly, a simple roll of his shoulders under the blanket and Al’s gentle hand. “I don’t think I have a choice,” he whispers.

Roy’s heart lurches and all fight in him dissipates when he realizes Ed is blinking back _tears_. More surprising than Ed’s emotional turn is Roy’s sudden urge to scoop him up and cocoon him with his own body. It’s so overwhelming he has to drop his hand and sit back on his heels to keep himself from doing it.

Ed doesn’t notice. He’s focused on Al, pressing himself harder into his brother’s unforgiving leg. He looks guilty and ashamed. “I know we haven't done shit for months and we’re already behind schedule, but…’s that okay, Al?”

“Of course it’s okay, Brother,” Al says, giving Ed’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I don’t mind. I’d actually love to just spend some time in Resembool. Would you want to go?”

Ed takes in a shuddering breath, a hand crawling out from under the blanket to grip Al’s glove. “I’d rather stay here. But thank you. Seriously, you're the greatest.”

“I know,” Al says, pulling a wet, sniffling laugh from Ed. “Don't worry about it Brother. You’re no good like this anyway,” he continues warmly, curling his large leather hand around Ed’s. “And if you’re not feeling better by the time I get back, I will haul you to the doctor by the braid.”

“I’ll wear a bun.”

“Then I’ll scruff you.”

“Doesn’t work anymore,” Ed says, a tint of pride to his voice.

Al huffs. “I will set up an elaborate array that triggers a net when you hug the toilet after you’re done throwing up. Which is kind of gross, by the way.”

Ed snorts. “I’ll fake feeling better if I have to.”

“And I will see right through you,” Al reminds him, and Ed finally leaves it at that, because he knows nothing can hide from Al’s incredible perception, especially himself. Not to mention they all know Roy would rat him out in a heartbeat, but it goes unspoken.

It works out well anyway, Al reminds them, as Ed’s heat is due next month, so it really takes care of two birds with one stone. And although Al gives his brother plenty of reassurance in the time leading up to his departure, it hardly soothes Ed, who continues to tear up for days after his sibling leaves, even with Al’s promise to be gone for no more than a month.

Roy is driven to ease this pain in Ed and chalks it up to their bond. Of course seeing his mate in pain and distress is going to make him dote on him; that’s how their biology works. But never has Roy been on the verge of tears himself upon shutting the front door and leaving for the office, Ed alone in the house behind him.

It can’t be just leaving doing this to him. No. It’s just that Ed isn’t supposed to be alone right now.

Ed takes just one week of his vacation time to rest. He was supposed to use all four of Al’s absence to do so but wiggles his way back into his lab on week two.

Anxiety pits itself in Roy’s belly when he receives notification, because Ed should _not_ be around chemicals. Which, when he reels that thought back in to poke at and analyze it, is just silly. Ed works with chemicals all the time. Yes, he’s a little… _enthusiastic_ out on the field, but never has he had a chemical or lab accident of any sort.

Roy is relieved to learn it’s just book research, Ed favoring the environment of his private lab to the public tables of the library. But it still takes every ounce of his control not to walk down to the labs and check on him every few hours, every single day.

He knows it would raise suspicions to an immeasurable degree. Hawkeye would drive him into a corner and wouldn’t let him leave until he explained, and that was the best-case scenario. He’s certain she knows something is up anyway; he can’t focus, he can’t eat, he can’t sit still. And he can’t fool her into thinking he’s fine, no matter how many times he says it.

The rest of the team jokes that he misses Al more than Ed does, but Roy is open to any theory that may explain what's happening to him. Trying to make up for Al's absence would make sense. There are plenty of logical explanations that do. But none of them are right, and his animal brain will always win that argument.

Ed’s schedule shifts. He starts waking up later, and going to bed later, and starts to feel better. But Roy can’t unconvince himself that Ed needs him now more than ever, a feeling that increases every single day.

One day while he and Ed return from a lunch with Havoc, Ed nearly trips going up the stairs. When Havoc reaches a hand out to steady him, Roy has to stop himself from snarling. It’s within his instinctive right to protect his omega from another alpha’s touch. But Havoc is a trusted member of his pack, has touched Ed in his presence countless times and never has Roy felt the need to take his head off.

What the hell is _wrong_ with him?

 

 

**october.**

Even though Ed feels better, his scent has permanently changed, and it’s made Roy uneasy. Uneasy in the way that he feels physically unsettled, not at all helped by the increased occurrence of things coming to mind out of nowhere. Like needing to stock the cabinets with an array of food Ed isn't even currently capable of eating, needing to check on him every few hours, needing to keep him safe from things he’s never felt the need to shield Ed from before.

October 3rd offers a brief distraction but doesn’t lessen the alpha’s worry. Ed is so incredibly emotional Roy again thinks his heat may be irregular and arriving a little early. Of course, it is an emotional day, and he’s only seen Ed on October 3rd on one other occasion so he has a poor sample of comparison, but he catches Ed with tears running down his cheeks more than once. He won’t eat and is incredibly unsettled, pacing and nesting, then ripping his nest apart only to build it again.

Once more, this suspected early heat never arrives, but it still takes Ed several days to settle back into a more familiar state of being. Roy chalks it up to an episode of distress brought on by him missing Al, and he wonders if the two have ever even been apart during this time before. Perhaps it would be best to be more careful about it in the future.

Ed’s cycle is a few days late when his nesting instincts finally hit anew. But something about the nest is off, just as the ones made during his distressed episode were, and Roy can’t put his finger on what it is. He shrugs it off when Ed’s scent spikes, and they wait for his heat.

And it never happens.

Which isn’t uncommon for a young omega, but definitely out of the norm for Ed, who has been right on the dot since the day he presented. All of the signs of preheat were there – the nesting, the scent, the behavior – everything except the heat itself.

But maybe Roy’s own biological clock, so attuned to Ed’s, had brought out signs and symptoms that wouldn’t have been there on their own. He’s sure he’d read about it somewhere before – that perhaps even some of Madame’s girls had gone through it while he’d lived in the brothel - and Ed seems happy with the explanation, if not absolutely thrilled that he doesn’t have to go through the maddening craze of a heat, and so they leave it at that.

They have only a few days before Al returns and Ed hasn’t thrown up in over two weeks, so Roy decides it’s safe enough to make his favorite dinner, pasta with spicy sausage and rosa sauce. But Ed doesn’t even get to sit down before the collective sight and smell sends him gagging and stumbling for the bathroom.

Of all things, that’s what does it. It finally clicks.

Oh.

The realization trickles down Roy’s body like ice water, stealing the air from his lungs and raising goosebumps even beneath his sweater.

Oh, god.

He, too, abandons their dinner and slowly trails after Ed down the hall, listening to him retch, adding up the symptoms, _all_ of them, because Ed isn’t the only one with them.

He enters the bathroom and without hesitation reaches down to scoop Ed’s hair out of his face as he gasps and coughs into the toilet bowl. Roy crouches down behind him, catching a whiff of Ed's scent, and his heart turns to stone.

It isn’t precisely the same way Gracia’s scent had changed, but it’s similar enough. His animal brain had known what it was long before he did.

They’d been blind to the impossible – which is actually, apparently, the improbable – but, _god_. How could neither of them have seen it?

When Ed is done vomiting he just hugs the toilet bowl, gasping and shaking.

“Ed,” Roy says softly, earning him a groan in response.

He knows what he smelled during Ed’s heat. It was fresh and earthy and _fertile_. And now? He’d said like a rainforest. Like something growing. Like _life_.

“I love you,” Roy says shakily.

“Okay?” Ed says. Roy clings to him, and Ed pats his arm. “I love you too, ya spaz. What’s up?”

Roy swallows a few times. He’s about to take the remainder of Ed’s carefree nature and set it to burn.

“You threw up for a few weeks but it’s inconsistent, and got a lot better. You skipped your heat. You’re always tired. Food you love repulses you.”

“I’m still gettin’ over this.”

Roy shakes his head. “And your scent. It’s changed. And me? _I’ve_ changed. I’m scenting you _all_ the time. I keep- I keep doing these weird things without thinking about it, and not being able to find a reason why when I do. The best I can do is fumble for logical explanations, but they never feel right. And this constant itching urge to check on you. To hold you like this,” Roy says, hooking an arm over Ed’s waist, resting his palm over Ed’s abdomen. Ed’s breath hitches and he clings even harder to the porcelain.

“Ed- I know they say it’s been phased out for generations, but-”

“No.” His response speaks volumes in its immediacy. He knows what Roy was going to say, which means he's considered it, too.

“Ed.”

“No. I can’t be _.”_

Roy runs his fingers down Ed’s spine, mind reeling. All traces of hunger are gone, leaving a dark pit of fear in his belly that spreads like diffusing ink.

“So if I were to say, buy some tests. You would take them for me.”

Ed makes an irritated noise, but agrees. “Sure. Whatever. Cause I know you’re gonna fucking bug me about it until I do, you weirdo. Is this another one of your kinks? You wanna knock me up so bad you can see it?”

Roy doesn’t say anything. He desperately wants Ed to be right.

But Ed isn’t right. Ed isn’t right and Ed knows it, too, Roy can practically smell the self-doubt on him. So he just squeezes his eyes shut and hugs Ed tighter.

Eventually, Ed sighs. “Just get the piss sticks so I can get this over with.”

They’re both shaking by the time Roy manages to steel himself long enough to let Ed go, and rise.  

He could obtain pregnancy tests from his aunt for free, but there’s no way he’s going to explain why, so Roy decides on a drug store several blocks away that he’s never been to. He’s on autopilot as he trudges there, bundled up in his civvies with a hat pulled low, and purchases three different tests. Numb. Had never even considered the possibility.

Ed is upstairs in their room when Roy returns home, curled up in his nest, his eyes a little red and lashes damp. He accepts the proffered sticks without a word and closes the bathroom door behind him.

It’s when Roy settles at the edge of the bed to wait, looking at Ed’s nest with fresh eyes, that he realizes what’s so different about this one. It’s not a nest of seduction, but one of comfort and safety, plush down and soft fabric and soothing colors.

He sniffs out the most telling evidence: a pack of chalk tucked safely between two of Ed’s pillows. It’s the only consistent scent that Al carries. Such a mild, familiar smell hadn’t rung any alarm bells for Roy, but seeing the actual object in their bed is the final seal on his suspicions. Ed probably has no idea what the behavior means and just assumed he desperately missed his brother. But no matter how much they're missing a loved one, there's only one reason a mated omega will bring scents outside of their mate’s into a nest.

And that's when they’re trying to familiarize a new baby with the scent of family.

Roy resumes his spot at the end of the bed, stunned.

This is not happening. It's not happening. It's not. It can't be.

He cups his face in his hands, then runs them back into his hair, over and over, until he hears the click of the door knob.

Ed emerges from the bathroom with the stick in his hand and places it gently on the dresser.

“Number one,” he says quietly.

"How long does it take?"

"Three minutes.”

Roy glances at his watch, mentally setting the timer.

It must be no different than watching a pot of water come to boil, and certainly no better than Roy counting the seconds on his watch as they tick by, but Ed stares at the test for a good minute anyway.

“This is just a joke, right?” he asks as if begging, rubbing his flesh hand down his face. “There's no way I could be, right? This is just a really bad joke." He drops down next to Roy with a whump. “I’m probably just coming down with something pretty horrible, like mono or sleeping sickness or something, right?”

Roy chooses not to say anything. He knows. They both do, really. They just need to see it.

He reaches over and grabs Ed's hand, and for the remaining time they cling to one another just like that. They're both shaking, but neither needed to feel it to acknowledge their shared fear.

“Three minutes,” Roy indicates quietly when the time is up.

Ed slowly rises, his hand slipping from Roy's, and walks to the dresser as if approaching a predator. When he gets there, he picks up the stick. Where Roy desperately clings to that last shred of denial – still somewhat expecting a scoff, an I-told-you-so, a wasted pregnancy test tossed him - Ed is utterly silent and still.

He has to be kidding, just joking, right?

Roy rises and plucks the white stick from Ed's hand, a nervous laugh already forming in his chest. But he swears for a moment his heart stops beating.

Because a pink plus sign stares him in the face.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tw](https://twitter.com/butbythegrace1) | [tu](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still a little shocked at how well-received this was and thank you all for your support and sweet comments.
> 
> It was brought to my attention that readers were worried there would be a uh, natural birth, and I could never do that to you guys, so I added a cesarean section tag. It will be from Ed’s POV and he’ll have very little idea of what’s happening.
> 
> Some homage paid to one of the best 03 scenes: the injection.
> 
> Warnings: Untimely medical information/probably inaccurate machine usage (get used to it now cause I won’t be warning you again). Mild panic attack. The topic of abortion will be briefly discussed.
> 
> LPT: if you’re going to take a pregnancy test, don’t be like Ed or Juno or me. Take it first thing in the morning.

 

 

“Well,” Ed says, after two more positive pregnancy tests followed by five solid minutes of silence. “I think it’s safe to say it’s yours.”

They remain side by side at the end of the bed. The sun has set, casting their room in dark dusk shadows, but this situation dawns before them.

He’s always known what to say. But for once, Roy Mustang has been robbed of his words.

“I’m almost more concerned you were able to take three of these consecutively,” is all he can manage, staring at the three tests lined up in a neat row on the dresser.

“I was really fucking nervous. I could probably take two more.”

Not that Ed needed to. Not that he even needed to take the first one, really, though it was for the best, because Roy is still finding it to be a difficult pill to swallow. Granted they’re no more than fifteen minutes past the initial proof - and he _knows_ this is real - but there’s a lingering piece of him waiting to wake up, even if it means losing three months he’d already lived, even if he would have to sign all those papers and suffer through meeting after agonizingly dull meeting all over again.

He would do it. He wants to beg; _please_ let him do it. Please let him start over.

At the other end of the spectrum, his alpha brain preens over the bundle of cells with half of his genetic code. So fucking proud, the lucky bastard, while the rest of him is edging up on panic. He can feel it gathering at his core, just waiting for a trigger.

“How is this possible?” he wonders, voice barely creeping above a whisper.

Ed shrugs. “Well I drank a lot of water after you left. So.”

If he wasn’t on the verge of shock, Roy would have laughed. “I’m referring to your evidently functional womb,” he corrects.

Ed threads his fingers into his bangs and stares at the carpet. “I…I fucked around with human transmutation. Of a female body, no less.” His eyes widen. “Maybe it’s not even my DNA.”

“That is…unsettling.”

“A bit, yeah.” Ed finally blinks, and lets his hands fall. “Maybe I’m just unlucky, as I’ve been all my life. There’s always rumors of pregnant male omegas.”

Always is a bit of a stretch.

“Rumors,” Roy reminds him. “No positive identifications since 1856.”

“That’s not that long ago.”

Roy sighs, long and tired. “No. It’s not.”

“What now?”

There’s no way around it. As much as Roy knows they would both prefer to keep it under wraps, keep on as if nothing were different, it just isn’t possible, not only for the complications and risks to Ed’s own life, but for those of the being who hadn’t asked to exist.

“We need a doctor,” Roy says.

Ed lets out a held breath. “Yeah, well. I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to see a military doctor.”

The mere suggestion of getting the military involved sends a chill down Roy’s spine, like a wick to the dynamite of this thing building in him.

He can never forget the stories the doctors told during Ishbal, that it hadn’t been the first time the military had taken their dreams of helping people and ground them into dust and despair. Of the imprisoned, pregnant women who were round up like cattle, separated from their families and taken away, never to be seen again. He can’t imagine the fate they met. He never wants to.

If they could do such evil to dozens in front of thousands, they would have no qualms of doing it to just one when no one was watching. Surely Ed would be considered such a rarity that they wouldn’t be able to help themselves. The military would take him. They would take Ed away, where he would spend the remainder of his pregnancy, if not his life, in a lab. They would keep their baby. And they would wipe Ed’s presence from the world to do it, doing the same to anyone who dare point to them in accusation.

The thought nearly makes Roy snarl. _No._ He would kill whoever dare try to even _touch_ them, his omega, his child. He would sacrifice it all in a heartbeat.

“The military can never, _ever_ find out.” His voice is far more low and threatening than he means for it to be, but it's barely within his control.

Ed, who's usually sensitive to Roy's episodes of panic but likely has far too much on his mind at the moment, rolls his eyes. “Roy, they’re not gonna-”

But they would. They stole Maes and ever since, on some level, Roy has been terrified they’ll keep taking from him until there’s nothing left.

“How do _you_ know, Ed?!” he snaps, his voice and heart rate rising in tandem. He ignores Ed’s surprised _‘hey’_ , jerks away from the mismatched hands reaching for him and stumbles to his feet. He feels sick. “They dispensed of Hughes without a second thought, they did, I _know_ they did, right under our noses, and it would hardly be arduous to make you and Alphonse just _disappear_ and if anything happened to either of you, _god,_ I don’t know what I’d-”

Ed is up on his knees at the edge of the mattress, clinging to Roy’s sweater, hands bunching in the fabric as they pull him closer, climbing up toward the collar. Ed’s scent envelopes him, sweet and calming but with that new edge that makes Roy’s heart plummet.

“Okay, okay,” Ed says softly, gently cupping Roy’s face and making Roy look at him. He can’t tell which of them is shaking. “It’s okay, yeah? I hear you. I believe you. Breathe.”

Roy’s first attempt is more of a gasp, but he tries. He keeps trying until the panic drains, down and out through the soles of his feet, taking his adrenaline and leaving him shaking and pliable to Ed’s hands that direct him to sit back down. Ed pulls the comforter out of his nest, wrapping it around Roy’s shoulders and wiggling underneath it himself, brushing his cheek over Roy’s neck, making him shiver.

Roy does his best to ground himself. White. Gold. Black. The down comforter is soft, Ed’s hair is silk, the material of Ed’s shirt sleeve is scratchy as Ed places a hand on his for balance. Ed’s neck brushes over his, solid and warm.

Roy takes a deep breath, wrangling himself back under control. Maes used to be the one to help him do this, in the beginning, and oh what Roy would give to have him here now. His death had knocked open a few old wounds while leaving one of its own, but Ed never complained about taking over helping to sew them shut. It’s been ages since Roy’s gone through something like this, and though by far and wide it’s mild compared to most, he’s not sure he’ll ever get over it. Here he is having a meltdown when he should be Ed’s rock in this shitstorm.

“I’m so sorry,” he finally manages.

Ed freezes, and Roy can feel the vibrations as a whine, possibly even a growl, gets caught in the omega’s throat.

“Don’t be. Ever,” Ed demands. “I thought it was just regular panic, I didn’t mean to- so just let me- just breathe.” He continues to scent Roy, again and again, until the shakes are brought down to something more manageable. Ed tugs the blanket around them tighter and stays pressed into Roy’s side. Roy wishes they could stay like this forever, bundled up in this little cocoon of their mixed scent, quiet and safe from the world that will do nothing but hurt them if given the chance.

“An omega state alchemist,” Roy says, and Ed’s breath catches. “The very first, for the sole reason you were the first who wasn’t yet old enough to present. But you’re atypical, and male, and they thought they were safe.”

State alchemist titles are limited to alpha men and women and beta men, though even the latter was rare, only a handful in existence. Omegas are a liability, from their scent to their heats to the ease with which they can be controlled by an alpha. Ed has shattered multiple barriers to stand where he is, but there are some that Roy knows just won’t budge, and one is an omega with a child.

“They will strip you of your title,” Roy tells him. “And that’s the best-case scenario.”

The answering silence speaks volumes. No state title means no leads, no missions, no library, no grants. It means the brothers being thrown back to square one, years of work and pain and sacrifice erased. Roy would be shocked if the military didn’t pursue an inquiry into the father’s identity – and without knowing what the child will look like when born, assuming Roy’s darker traits will be dominant – it would hardly be difficult to tell.

All of the issues want to pour in at once – how are they _ever_ going to hide a pregnancy, let alone a _baby_ – but he has to push them down. They need a fighting chance. And a fighting chance is finding a doctor to help them.

“What do we do then?” Ed finally asks. “I’ve got no regular doctor.”

Roy can feel himself tense, still on edge. He doesn’t think there’s even a regular doctor he would trust.

This time Ed senses his teetering state. “Granny Pinako used to be a midwife,” he suggests quickly. “She delivered me ’n Al.”

Roy doesn’t know much about male omega pregnancy, but at the end of the phase out, all babies were born via surgical intervention. “Unless she’s ever delivered a baby by cesarean section, I would assume this is too much for her to handle.”

“She _is_ a surgeon.”

“Who operates on _limbs_ , Edward. Anesthesia can’t even be used during automail attachment. She’s had no training.”

Ed huffs. “You got a better suggestion?”

Roy knows he’s being hard to reason with, as if he could push the pregnancy out of existence by giving it nowhere to turn. They have so few options to begin with and they’re going to have to settle for the best of the worst.

That sparks an idea in him. The man is no regular doctor, that’s for sure.

“I do,” he starts slowly, “but you won’t like it.”

Ed tilts his face up and stares. Roy stares back. Then Ed’s eyes widen. “No.”

Roy sighs. “Ed, I don’t think we have a choice.”

“He hates me.”

“You haven’t given him much of a reason to feel otherwise.”

“What about Madame? She _loves_ me. She knows someone in everything.”

Roy had considered her during his journey to and from the drug store, but it doesn’t sit well with him. He doesn’t know the doctors she uses, and even if they’re willing to work under the table, caring for the health of sex workers versus overseeing a high-risk pregnancy were barely in the same ballpark.

His skin prickles, and Roy grits his teeth. If he’s this protective now, he’s going to become an utter nightmare.

“That she does - and she may have connections, but I can’t imagine these are people you would want to trust with something this big,” Roy says. Then, softer, “You’re a medical marvel, Ed. I’m not sure precisely what that entails, but I am certain that the world finding out will put you in grave danger.”

Ed groans, burying his face in his hands.

“Knox can be trusted," Roy insists. "He owes me a favor anyway.”

“I thought you used it up on me.”

“Sending you his way for a service he provides the public is hardly asking a favor.”

"What did you even do for him?"

"For fear of risking perjury, I'm afraid I can't say."

"Full of shit," Ed accuses. He pushes his hands back into his bangs and shoots Roy a look. "And what if he doesn’t go for it?”

“Worst-case scenario, I waste a favor and we – cautiously – explore these other avenues.”

Ed's jaw works. He finally sighs. “Fine,” he agrees, if only to temporarily keep Roy from freaking out, but Roy will take it nonetheless.

It’s barely eight o’clock, but with neither of their appetites in existence and the nest offering them what little comfort they can find in this situation, they decide to try for sleep.

It’s impossible. Ed forces himself to purr even though he has no reason to, as if he’s attempting to at least calm Roy enough for him to get some rest, but it only makes Roy’s heart ache all the worse. He can smell Ed’s fear and eventually Ed lets it out, the tears coming hot and heavy, blooming into sobs that choppily wrack his body as he keeps trying to purr between them. It’s all Roy can manage to stroke his fingers through Ed's hair, over and over again, while keeping himself from following his mate into the abyss of uncertainty and dread so strong he can taste it.

 

 

 

The next morning finds them standing on the front stoop of the business side of Knox’s home. It’s been well over a year since Roy has spoken to him, even longer since he’s paid him a visit in person.

For the most part Knox continues to perform pathological testing, but five years earlier had also started offering suppressant services on the side. Though suppressants are still unregulated by the government and considered dangerous in most cases, it doesn’t stop omegas from seeking them, and while Knox’s cocktail can’t claim perfection, it can claim safety. Roy had sent Ed in his direction as a last-ditch effort to keep the omega from bullying him into a heat partnership. The attempt hadn’t succeeded after Ed realized suppressants would keep him in a drugged-induced fog, near useless for up to a week, whereas Roy could treat his heats within two days.

At least, this is what Ed claims. Roy is sure the drug being given via an injection is what sealed deal.

There had also been a very Ed-typical incident that would leave Knox rather averse to treating him anyway, and Roy crosses his fingers that the doctor would be over it by now.

He knocks, but there’s no answer.

“Did you even call?” Ed asks suspiciously.

“An attempt was made.”

“So he didn’t answer.”

“If I’d shared that with you that at the house I doubt we would have made it here.”

“Shows what you know. Between an aimless morning walk and you incessantly mother henning me I’d pick the former.”

Roy had not _mother henned_ him, thank you very much. Maybe he'd hardly slept properly, on high alert any time Ed shifted or sighed, and yes, maybe his anxiety had been off the charts when Ed refused breakfast, but it’s not like either of them could eat anyway, so it wasn’t _that_ big a deal. Perhaps he'd gone too far insisting on a car when they hadn’t even a dozen blocks to walk, which had sent Ed stomping down the drive with Roy scrambling to follow, but it was _chilly_ this morning, okay. If Ed had any idea how much Roy’s instincts were screaming for him to do more, then he may have saved that comment for a later date.

So Roy ignores him and knocks again. A weekend morning phone call was bound to go ignored even without the alarming amount of medication he knows Knox kicks back most nights.

“He’s probably not even here,” Ed grouches as he scrapes the toe of his boot on the stone step.

“He’s definitely here.” Knox has always been a homebody. Roy has never known him to travel, not to mention the home isn’t shuttered.

He knocks a third time.

Ed leans against the porch railing, hands in his coat pockets. “Y’can’t just show up on a Saturday morning and expect-”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” a muffled voice barks from within the residence.

Roy smothers his relief – Ed would never let him hear the end of it – and instead quirks an eyebrow. Ed refuses to acknowledge him and rolls his eyes to the road.

The lock clicks and the door swings open to reveal a freshly woken and undeniably annoyed Dr. Knox. His t-shirt and sweats are rumpled, the eyes behind his glasses blinking blearily in the morning sun as they settle on Roy. “Mustang. You look like shit.”

“Knox,” Roy greets. “It’s nice to see you too.”

The doctor leans on the door frame. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise _Saturday morning_ visit.”

Roy gestures beside him.

Knox follows Roy’s cue and his expression goes flat. “Oh. And you.”

Roy can just feel Ed rising up on the balls of his feet like a pissed off cat. He places a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “I need to cash in.”

Knox’s gaze lingers on Roy’s hand. Then he rolls his eyes and sighs. “I was wondering when you’d show up. Seeing as neither of you seems to be in the throes of death, I hope you’re planning to make this quick.”

“I will do my best,” Roy says, which isn’t even a lie.

Knox points at Ed. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.” He punctuates each word with a jab of his finger in Ed’s direction. Roy has to push down on his shoulder to keep him from another full-body reaction. Despite Knox being an alpha and having every right to see Ed's defiant glare as a challenge, he steps aside and ushers them in.

The business residence opens right into a hallway, and Knox leads them through the first door on their right, a room packed with bookshelves and two worn sofas facing one another with a coffee table in between. They settle on opposing sides, the pair leaving a seat’s worth of distance between them, not that it’s going to matter in the end, nor does it lessen Knox’s suspicious gaze, trained on them and waiting.

“How have you been, Doc?” Roy asks.

Knox snorts. “As much as I enjoy you taking up my weekend with your pleasantries, let’s get this over with.”

Roy and Ed share a look.

Roy wonders what it would be like. To be able to keep it to themselves for some time, to share it with only those they wanted to, and for those special few to greet them with excitement and support. He remembers how absolutely gleeful and proud Maes had been when he’d announced Gracia’s pregnancy, and the overwhelming joy Roy had felt for his friend. He wonders what it would feel like for excitement to outweigh all the negative, frightening things nipping at his edges.

It’s something they’re never going to have. Instead they’re here; barely twelve hours outside of figuring it out, uncertain bordering on terrified, stuck breaking the news in a dusty waiting room to someone who doesn’t want to know and has a high chance of kicking them back to the curb.

Ed’s eyes are swimming with nerves and fear. This is going to make it real. Neither of them wants to jump, but they’ve got no choice.

Knox scents the air. “The fuck did you do, Mustang? Smells like you’re about to have a nervous breakdown.”

At least Ed’s patches are doing their job.

Roy wants to laugh, but he’s sure it would turn into a sob, and he swallows it down. “I’m not sure how to put this,” he says, reaching into his coat pocket and bringing out one of the tests Ed had taken. They'd carefully wiped it clean of his scent, and as long as it stayed capped, it would be fine. He places it on the coffee table and slides it across.

Knox looks between the two of them – probably still trying to analyze what Ed’s presence has to do with this - then reaches out and picks the test up. He looks at it, bewildered, then annoyed. “Congratulations, it’s positive. You finally knock up one of your conquests, Mustang?”

Beside him, Ed bristles.

“Who the hell are you calling a conquest, buddy?” he spits before Roy can stop him.

Knox just stares. While they won’t be getting the sort of response Roy mourned, the look on his face will be forever cherished as the next best thing.

Roy turns to Ed, annoyed. “Correct me if I misunderstood, but I thought we discussed breaking the news a little more gently.”

“I’m not gonna sit here and be insulted, okay?”

“You…and _you?_ ” Knox says, the last bit emphasized toward Ed, who bristles again.

Knox’s eyes widen and he looks at the pregnancy test again, then back to Ed. “This is yours?”

Jaw clenched, Ed slowly nods.

Knox fumbles, his mouth opening and closing several times. Roy can’t think of anything to say himself and decides it’s best to just let the doctor work it out.

Knox blinks a few times, shakes his head, and tosses the test onto the coffee table. “Certain cancers can present as a positive pregnancy test in males. You should make an appointment with your doctor. And probably stop fucking around with your CO, but hey, that’s just my opinion.”

Ed’s lip curls and he clenches his fists. But instead of the tantrum Roy is sure is en route, Ed removes his gloves and reaches up to the patches that cover his scent glands, carefully peeling away the adhesive. He hasn’t had them on long so the scent is still light and delicate, but unmistakable. He rubs at one with his flesh hand, releasing even more, and it makes Roy salivate.

Meanwhile, Knox looks like he’s just been slapped in the face. “You. You are,” he stammers. “But that’s- that’s not possible.”

"Tell that to all my symptoms that say you're wrong," Ed mutters.

"I've- _heard_ things, as I'm sure we all do, but never-" Knox trails off, stunned.

“We need your help,” Roy says softly.

The realization that _this_ is why the two alchemists are paying him a visit finally hits, and the doctor shakes his head adamantly. “No. No _way_ ,” Knox says. “First, I don’t do trouble, and even if I did, I don’t do babies.”

“You owe me,” Roy presses, trying to push down the panic creeping up his throat. He’s barely comfortable with _this_ , and if it doesn’t work out he’s going to lose his damn mind.

“I do, but there’s a difference in wanting to help – which I don’t,” he reiterates, “and being able to – which I can’t. Do you have any idea when the last time I doctored a living body was? Aside from shooting them up with enough tranquilizers to make them not give shit?”

“You’ve gotta help me,” Ed says quietly, tearing their attention back to him. “I’d like to believe I’m too valuable to the public for them to pull any funny shit, but when compared to _this_ ,” he says, gesturing to his stomach, “the rest of me isn’t so special.”

“You know what will become of him, Knox,” Roy presses. “Better than even we do.”

Roy knows what the war looks like on his own face well enough and he can see it flash through Knox’s eyes. He feels somewhat guilty for dredging up such pain, but momentary guilt over surfacing demons that will be there for the rest of the man’s life is a small price to pay. The doctor rubs his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Robert. Please,” Roy says.

Knox groans, letting his head fall back and cursing the ceiling. “God _dammit_ Mustang. When I offered you a favor, I expected some internal bleeding, or covering up a murder. Not _this.”_

“I am not above begging.”

Knox straightens up and stares them down. They stare right back - Roy can tell how unnerved Knox is, having an omega look at him like that - until the doctor bows his head with a sigh. “There’s a friend of mine. A little old fashioned. But he might be able to keep Mr. Elric out of a laboratory. He assisted with male omega deliveries for a little over a decade, right at the end of their phase out. There weren’t very many at that point, but they were definitely as high risk as you can get.”

“I take it you mean old-fashioned quite literally,” Roy deadpans.

The corner of Knox’s mouth pulls up. “He’s 91. But you wouldn’t believe it.”

“And why should we trust him?” Ed asks.

Knox rubs his neck. “He planned on retiring next year. The man isn’t just nearing the end of his practice, but very possibly the end of his life. Whatever he would have to gain from ratting you out wouldn’t amount to much,” he says. Then, hushed as if secret, “And you won’t be the first he’s done this for.”

Ed's eyes narrow in annoyance. “Well you coulda just said _that_.”

“I just did,” Knox said flatly.

Ed growls but Roy puts a hand on his shoulder.

“We’re interested.”

Knox eyes that hand as he had earlier. Roy wonders what the doctor had been thinking then, if anything. He probably wishes he could rewind to that point in time and tell the pair to get lost. Roy can sympathize.

"He might not be. Like I said, the man's getting ready to retire."

"It's worth trying."

Knox rubs a hand down his face, shakes his head, and rises. “Give me a few minutes to make a call, then. Don't go getting your hopes up, either.” He starts toward the door, then stops, turning and pointing at Ed. “And don’t. Touch. Anything,” he repeats, then leaves.

Roy lets out a shaky breath. He knows this is only the first hurdle of many, but it’s progress nonetheless.

Ed doesn’t seem as concerned. As soon as Knox is gone, he kicks his boots up on the coffee table and sulks, no doubt directed at Knox’s unshakable distrust of him. “Why does he keep saying that?”

“It may have something to do with you knocking over an entire cabinet of medical supplies.”

Ed’s boots hit the floor as he sputters. “I put it back! I even fixed the vials!”

“Sans their contents,” Roy says. “There was enough liquid on the floor to drown in, or so I was told.”

Ed huffs. “I tried to ask him for the ingredients and concentrations but he was too busy screaming to listen.”

“You were barely sixteen,” Roy points out.

“So?”

“So, from a doctor’s standpoint, would you trust a sixteen-year-old alchemist to separate a few hundred bottles of serums, solutions, and injectable medication?”

“I would have done a better job than an alchemist two or three times my age.”

“Doctors and alchemists go like oil and water to begin with.”

“Who does he think makes that shit?”

Roy sighs. “He’s trying to save your life, Ed.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Ed gripes, but he goes quiet. Though he looks and acts disgruntled, without his patches on there’s no hiding his nerves.

Roy places his hand on the space of cushion between them, palm up. Ed laces their fingers together, and in the anxiety-inducing quiet, they wait.

Dr. Knox returns some minutes later, shuffling into the room without making eye contact. He stops in front of the coffee table and takes in the sight of them clinging to one another, his expression as blank and grim as ever. Then the corners of his mouth quirk up. He tosses them a business card and Ed scrambles to catch it.

“You’re in luck,” Knox says. “He’s feeling a little bored in his final months of practice and could use a challenge. Be there in an hour.”

“Th-thanks!” Ed says, holding the card with wide eyes.

“You’re welcome.” Knox tosses a fresh set of scent gland covers onto the coffee table. “Now put those on and get the fuck outta here. You two are trouble just waiting to happen and you’re his problem now.”

Overwhelmingly relieved, Roy rises and grabs the doctor’s hand. “Thank you.”

Knox, true to someone who prefers the dead to the living, looks as if the gratitude causes him physical pain, but he allows it. “Glad to get you off my back, Mustang. Remind me to just burn down my own building next time.”

"Arson and insurance fraud," Ed says with a scoff. "Go figure."

"I admit to nothing," Roy says.

"Need an extra set of patches to cover your ears?" Knox asks, though it's more of a thinly veiled threat.

Ed makes a face but otherwise makes quick work of the patches. He even stands stone still and allows Knox to spray him down with a can of disinfectant while the doctor gripes about how he's going to have to do the entire room. Despite his rough demeanor, Knox sees them to the door and lingers in the threshold after the pair steps outside.

“Congratulations, I guess,” he says. Then, with a rare almost smile, “And good luck.”

The door shuts. They barely make it down the porch steps before Ed falls to his knees and vomits bile in the fall-bare garden.

 

 

 

This doctor resides at the very west edge of the city. At least, between Roy being generally exhausted and Ed being generally pregnant, Roy is able to convince him that a car is the best way to overcome the several miles it takes to get there.

A little sooner than the time Knox gave them has the pair standing outside of a sweet little stone building, fall flowers hanging in baskets from the wood porch overhang. The sign above reads Lacefield General Practice.

“You okay?” Roy asks.

Ed, who’s been nervously shifting from one foot to the other for the past two minutes, stills, and frowns. “Fuckin’ dandy.”

“Ready?”

“No,” Ed says, before stepping forward and yanking the door open, so suddenly it catches Roy off guard and sends him scrambling to follow.

A bell jingles as they enter, the door opening right into a small, bright waiting room that smells of nothing but disinfectant. It’s empty, but only briefly, the sound of footsteps echoing down a hall quickly succeeding the bell. Judging by the tempo, Roy definitely doesn’t expect them to belong to a 91-year-old man, but then again, the person who appears does not look to be 91, either. Even as someone clearly into his later years, his steel gray hair and tall, strong stature leave Roy hardly feeling comfortable with the term ‘elderly’.

“Hello hello!” he greets, rushing forward to shake both of their hands. No scent, no patches; a beta. “Good morning Mr. Mustang, Mr. Elric. It’s an honor to meet such esteemed scientists as yourselves. I would apologize for it being under these circumstances, but this is absolutely thrilling from my standpoint, to say the least.”

Ed looks at Roy during the handshake, the look on his face communicating Roy’s exact thoughts. Was this actually their man? And if so, how were he and Knox friends?

At their short, shocked silence, the doctor’s eyebrows pop up.

“Oh, my manners! Dr. Gregory Lacefield,” he says, adjusting his glasses with a smile. “I did mention I was excited, didn’t I?”

“It’s good to meet you, Doctor,” Roy says with a small smile of his own. “I apologize. We’re a touch shell shocked at the moment.”

“Understandable,” he says. “I’m afraid today isn’t going to help much with the whiplash, but we’ll muddle through the best we can. Head on down to the last door on the left. I’m going to lock up and grab my files and will be there shortly.” He pauses and flashes a smile in Ed’s direction in particular. “And, ah. Please don’t touch anything.”

Ed’s eyes narrow and his lip curls, but Roy claps a hand on his shoulder and steers him toward the hallway before the younger man starts muttering about _fuckin’ doctors_ and _judgin’ people_ and _is this shoulder thing doin’ something for you today or what,_ all of which Roy graciously ignores in favor of getting Ed out of Lacefield’s earshot as quickly as possible. It’s hard to say whether the doctor is just worried about Ed leaving his particularly unique fingerprint behind or if Knox mentioned Ed’s wandering hands, but either would leave Ed just as irritated, so it hardly matters.

They pass three other empty rooms before entering an exam room packed with equipment. Cabinets, a counter, and sink line one wall. The supplies have all been packed together as tightly as possible, and within the cleared area sits an exam table, a rolling stool, and a chair. After a brief consideration, Ed hops up onto the table, its paper cover crackling underneath his movements, and Roy takes the chair.

“Are we in a storage room?” Ed asks, swinging his legs and having a look around.

“Quite possibly.”

“Wonder why. ’s not like the other rooms are occupied.”

“I’m going out on a limb here in assuming putting a pregnant male in a room frequented by other patients is a risk.”

Ed snorts. “There’s no one here to frequent it while I’m in there.”

“You have a rather peculiar aroma that takes some time to dissipate, if you’ve forgotten.”

“He’s going to make me take off my patches?” Ed asks, concern leaking into his eyes even though he’d just done it for Knox in a far less secure setting.

“Color me shocked if he doesn’t make you take off your clothes.”

Ed makes a grating sound, as if it’s just dawning on him that his body is going to be under detailed medical scrutiny. “Tell him I do that enough at home.”

“I will do no such thing,” Roy dismisses, “and neither will you.”

“I’m sure he’s heard worse,” Ed says with a sly grin, the kind that’s always seeking to make friends with trouble.

“The man is _91_ years old, Ed. I think he’s earned a break from your flavor of humor.”

“Yeah well, he looks fucking 70 at most, so I don’t think unsolicited patient information has been too hard on him.”

Roy doesn’t have a chance to reply or even agree. The doctor knocks, a warning more than anything, and then enters, shutting and locking the door behind him.

“I don’t mean to alarm you with all of this door locking. But I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that we don’t become complacent,” he explains. He tosses a few file folders on a set of drawers and takes a seat on the rolling stool, laying his clipboard in his lap.

“I apologize, both for the cramped quarters and not being completely prepared. By your next visit I’ll have you set up under a false name and we’ll move your appointments to the theatre in the basement. Today we’re just going to do some basics.” He flips the first page over. “First order of business: consent. My wife is a nurse and my daughter a physician’s assistant. I assure you they can be trusted. They are ecstatic at the possibility of bearing witness to this and I insist they be a part of the process for your utmost care and safety. Agreed?”

Roy’s jaw twitches.

Ed nods. “Yeah.”

“Fantastic. You will meet them next time.” Lacefield picks a pen from his pocket, scribbles something on the page, and flips to the next one. “Now. When was your last heat?”

And so the questions go, covering the dates of Ed’s heat, the one that never happened, and a timeline of everything in between. The doctor doesn’t even flinch at Ed’s birthday, though it does little to keep Roy from that familiar apprehension. By the time they’ve made it through Ed’s medical history – extensive – and that of his parents – near non-existent – Roy has made his peace with it. The man is here to help them, not scold them on any of their lifestyle decisions. As Ed had said earlier, he’s probably seen worse, though it was hardly a comfort.

The doctor takes down Ed’s list of symptoms – which had grown slightly with things Ed had written off or that neither of them had recognized. Frequent urination, tasting metal, and a sore chest join the list, the last of which seems to intrigue the doctor, who explains that the ability for male omegas to nurse their children had phased out long before pregnancy. It was probably nothing, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

Despite his voice staying level, Ed steadily grows more agitated as the interview progresses, swinging his feet, jiggling his knee, biting his lip. His eyes grow ever wider, his expression more detached. Before Roy can interject and suggest a break, the doctor pauses in his questioning, eyes softening as he takes in the sight of Ed gnawing on his lip and staring off into space.

“Edward,” Lacefield says gently. Ed drags his eyes back to the man. “How do you feel about all of this?”

Ed takes a deep breath, wide eyes dropping to the floor. “It doesn’t feel real.”

“That’s to be expected.” The doctor lowers his pen. “This may be difficult to deal with on an emotional level. And I’m sorry to say you should be leery of speaking about this with a therapist. Patient confidentiality will only get you so far in this case, I’m afraid.”

“’s alright. I’ve managed fine so far,” Ed says, tinging his automail fingers together.

“Very well. Don’t hesitate to speak with me, my wife, or daughter.” The doctor sets his clipboard down and stands. “Now. I’ll need to take your vitals. Boots off.”

Ed goes through it all in silence as Lacefield fills in the boxes for his height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure. The doctor explains everything he’s doing out loud, surely well practiced with over-protective alphas, and Roy manages to smother his twitches of protest to the bare minimum.

“Let’s have a look at you,” the doctor tells Ed, pulling a cloth measuring tape out of his pocket. “Shirt up or off, your choice, pants low on the hips, and lay back.”

“There’s, uh. Not much to see,” Ed says, a hint of protest to his tone.

“We need to start somewhere,” Lacefield tells him.

Ed’s cheeks color a bit, but he obliges. He makes quick work of his belt and pant fastenings, tugs his shirt hem free, then lifts it up. He lays back on the bed, paper crinkling as he shimmies his pants lower and gets comfortable. He’s a bit slimmer from lack of appetite and exercise, but his abs are still defined, pulling his stomach taut and giving away nothing. The doctor measures him anyway.

“All body types are different,” Lacefield says as he stretches the measuring tape from the bottom of Ed’s sternum down to his hips. “So many factors will affect how you carry a pregnancy. Taking into consideration this being your first and your level of physical fitness, don’t be surprised if you don’t start to show until your fourth or fifth month. Sometimes it’s a gradual change, sometimes it seems to happen overnight. But given your shorter torso, at some point they’re going to have nowhere else to grow but out.”

Ed stares at the ceiling, face blank. He doesn’t even seem to register the shorter torso comment. If he’s in anything like the headspace Roy is, this entire situation feels utterly surreal, as if it’s happening to different people and they’re just looking in to sympathize.

After he makes a few more notes, the doctor comes up with a handful of white circular patches that Roy recognizes as the sensors for a heart rate monitor.

“Since you’re into your second trimester, I’m going to attempt to locate the fetal heartbeat. I’m going to stick these electrode patches on your abdomen. Don’t be alarmed if we can’t find anything yet. These are made for the chest, after all, but I have had luck locating the heartbeat soon after the first trimester.”

He pastes four electrodes low on Ed’s abdomen, in a neat line right above the level of his hips. Roy stares at the two bracketing the golden curls that disappear under the waistband of Ed’s boxers.

The doctor clips wires to each patch and flicks the machine on. It takes a moment to warm up, the galvo pen swishing several large waves as the graph paper starts to roll, and then a discernable pattern starts to emerge, along with an audible heartbeat, the rate of which reads 92.

“Nervous?” Lacefield asks Ed.

“Uh, to say the least.”

The doctor flicks a button on the monitor to the same result. It’s the second change, what Roy guesses to be one of the middle electrodes, where the rate takes a dramatic jump to 151, and stays there.

Roy sucks in a breath.

Ed’s eyes widen. “That’s-” his voice cuts off.

“A very healthy fourteen-week fetal heart rate,” the doctor finishes, making a note. “Consistent. No irregular jumps or dips. Would you like a print out?”

“S-sure,” Ed stutters.

Lacefield smiles. “We’ll just let it run for another moment then.”

He lets it go for another 30 or so seconds before flicking the machine off and disconnecting the wires from the electrodes. He soaks a cloth in mineral oil and hands it to Ed. “Work this under the patch edges. Helps them come off easier.”

“Thanks,” Ed whispers. True to the doctor’s word, they come off with little resistance. Ed trades the cloth and spent patches for a couple feet of paper, the section where the heart rate had gone from his own to the baby’s. Ed stares at it, lip bitten and brows furrowed, and then hands it off to Roy so he can refasten his clothes.

Seeing the heart beat – holding it in his hands – nearly makes Roy’s own skip. He’d like to think it from nerves, but it’s that damn alpha again, pumping him full of as much parental attachment as it can manage. He can practically feel himself fall in love and it leaves his throat tight.

The doctor settles back down on his stool and waits until Ed is resituated to speak. “Now. You have four weeks to decide whether or not to continue with the pregnancy.”

Their gazes snap to Lacefield in unison.

“What do you mean?” Ed asks, brows furrowed. Then his eyes widen in realization. The paper bed cover crinkles in his suddenly tight grasp. “You mean have an abortion?”

Lacefield nods. “Yes.”

Abortions have never been legal in Amestris, and very, very difficult to find. Clearly, neither he nor Ed had even considered it being an option, especially from a doctor who was so eager to see a male pregnancy. But that’s the sign of a great doctor, Roy supposes. One who’s not in it for themselves or the money, but the health and needs and their patient.

It would certainly be the easiest, quickest, and safest way out of this, but Roy’s stomach still churns with unease. The alpha in him strongly objects to anything being done to purposefully snuff life from the gathering of cells that would be his child. But he also knows it isn’t his decision to make.

Ed looks just as stunned at the offer. “Right. Okay.”

“You can make that decision any time before the four weeks is over, after which an early delivery only becomes an option in an effort to save your or the baby’s life.”

“And if that happens, you’ll do your best to keep the baby alive?” Ed asks.

“After 28 weeks or if they weigh two pounds or more, yes. Any earlier and the baby will not be viable, even with current medical care.”

 _Two pounds_. It was difficult to even fathom a human so tiny.

"Did-" Ed hesitates. "Did any of the others you've helped choose to?"

The doctor nods. "Yes."

"Did they regret it?"

"Outwardly, no. They were relieved. Regret is not born from choosing to end a pregnancy, but from being unsure of that choice. I've seen other patients regret it, and I've seen patients regret having children they did not want. It's all in your perspective, and no one else can tell you what that is."

Ed nods. He won't raise his eyes from the floor, as if ashamed to even be asking.

"The sooner you come to a decision though, the better,” Lacefield continues. “Until then we will proceed as normal.” He retrieves the files left on the chest of drawers, plucking out several different papers. “I could talk your ear off today – yes, more than I already have – but want you back next week anyway, so I’ll send you off with these for the time being.” He uncaps his pen for the umpteenth time and starts listing his instructions as he writes them.

“The usual things you’ve heard, I’m sure. No drinking, no smoking. Eating a healthy diet is difficult when you’re not feeling well, and it’s better to eat something than nothing at all. I also recommend my patients take a multivitamin.” He points his pen at Ed’s arm. “There have been very few studies done about the reattaching of automail limbs during pregnancy. I would advise against it.”

“What about alchemy?” Ed asks tentatively.

“I would advise against it.”

Ed nods, trying his best to appear stoic, but Roy doesn’t miss the clench of his jaw and the pain that flickers through his eyes. _It’s only temporary_ he wants to soothe, even though it wouldn’t help. Ed had been feeling well enough lately, had been hopeful that Al’s return would mean restarting moving toward their goal. But it’s all been ripped away, just like that.

When the doctor hands Roy the stack of papers, it dawns on him that the appointment is winding down and they haven’t even discussed payment. Obviously, the military won’t be covering the cost, leaving them no choice but to pay out of pocket. And if there’s one thing Roy knows, it’s that under the table almost never means cheap.

“About the bill-” Roy starts.

“Don’t worry about it,” the doctor says, waving him off, much to Roy’s shock.

“But-” Roy starts, aiming for something along the lines of ‘this is surely going to cost an absurd amount of money’, but Lacefield cuts him off.

“Buy me lunch sometime,” he says. “A few times, if you like. But I insist.”

“But we’re both-” Ed tries, and Lacefield holds up a hand.

“This is more than I could ever ask for,” he tells them with a smile. “One last chance to do this.”

They stop trying to argue, if only because the man is 91 years old and they don’t want to be the patients that give him enough trouble he finally starts to look like it. Or maybe it’s that he’s turned his back and thus becomes harder to argue with, but who’s keeping track.

As the doctor rummages around in a drawer, Roy and Ed sit in silence and stare at the stack of papers in Roy’s hands. The graph of the heart beat is nestled on top, folded neatly.

“One last thing before you go,” Lacefield says, shutting the drawer. “I just need to swab your scent glands and take a blood sample.”

Both of their heads shoot up.

“Blood sample?” they echo in unison.

“Oh yes,” Lacefield says with a smile, turning to reveal several supplies laid out on the medical cart, most notably a glass tube and syringe with needle, as well as a rubber tourniquet in his hand. “Once a month until the baby is born.”

Roy barely manages to snag Ed by the back of the neck as he makes a mad dive for the door. But true to Ed’s word, it doesn’t work anymore, and his teeth find Roy’s hand before the alpha can process the slip.

 

 

 

Ed makes a beeline for the stairs as soon as they get home and Roy decides to let him have some space, instead choosing to ice his injury at the kitchen table. The doctor had cleaned the wound and bandaged him up, and though it's hardly anything to speak of, Roy can still feel the bruise surfacing. He briefly eyes the literature the doctor gave them before determining it to be too much for him to handle. He flips the first page upside down and slides the stack further down the table, out of his line of sight. The print out of the heart beat is missing, and though it stirs up some anxiety, he’s sure it’s safe.

When he finally dumps the ice turned slush in the sink and climbs the stairs to their room, Ed is just where he knew he’d be, tucked into the soft comfort of his nest. The curtains are mostly drawn, leaving a sliver of afternoon light slicing through the dim, running jaggedly over the bed and Ed’s hip. He doesn’t stir at Roy’s presence, but is clearly awake, and by scent alone Roy knows he’s been crying. He's laying on top of all the blankets and facing the other direction, the graph paper spread open on the pillow next to him. The one that smells of chalk, the one he’s been hugging in his sleep since the day Alphonse left.

Roy hesitates at the edge of the bed, but with Ed giving no hints that he isn’t welcome, he carefully enters the nest. He longs to cover them both, cocoon them in a blanket of safety as Ed had done the day before, but he doesn't want to risk jostling and upsetting the omega, and so simply curls up next to him.

Ed’s ribs rise and fall with several deep breaths as he takes in Roy’s scent, and then settles. “Sorry ’bout your hand,” he whispers.

“I’ll be fine. You barely broke the skin.” Roy curls that hand over Ed’s body, letting it come to rest over his belly. Ed flinches beneath his touch and Roy has to swallow the thick feeling in his throat. “Talk to me,” he urges gently. “Whatever you’re thinking. Please.” He needs to do whatever he can to alleviate this pain, this distress, and he only hopes Ed will let him.

“I’m scared,” Ed admits, more freely than he ever has, his voice hoarse and wobbly. “I wish this wasn’t happening. I just wanna wake up. Or go back to when I was such a _fucking_ idiot and told you not to bother with the condom.”

“I listened to you,” Roy says quietly. “I was far more coherent. It would have taken ten seconds, but I gave in without a thought. Neither of us would have suggested or gone through with such a thing if we’d known this was possible.”

“I wish it wasn’t,” Ed says again.

“You have the option to not go through it.”

The answering silence is heavy.

Ed rolls over and eyes him. “How d’you feel about that?”

Roy’s alpha instincts, predictably, take an immediate and firm stance. _Horrible_ they say. _It burns like white hot steel in my stomach, freezes like ice in my chest. Life and purpose all come down to this. This is everything._ Everything.

But he’s not going to say it, even though he’s sure Ed can smell a clusterfuck of emotion coming from him.

His rational mind is less set in stone. Being a father isn’t something he's ever put a lot of time into considering. Before Ed he’d hardly had an interest in a steady relationship to begin with, let alone becoming a parent on purpose. But it’s been drilled into him from a young age that if he was mature enough to have sex, then he was mature enough to handle the consequences, whatever they may be, and that simply writing a check once a month was not considered an acceptable form of handling a partner falling pregnant. It certainly hadn’t ever scared him away from sex, though he’d definitely taken all necessary measures to prevent any unplanned pregnancies. At least, with partners who had the known possibility of becoming pregnant.

And really, he’s fine with children. He loves Elicia as fiercely as any uncle could and has babysat her near regularly since she was six months old. Children aren’t the frightening concept. It’s being a good parent that is. But that is certainly a fear most every parent has, he’s sure.

In the end, he just wants Ed. He wants Ed and Ed’s happiness and if that means his alpha stamping and screaming while the pregnancy is ended, he will be there. If it means opening his heart to another addition and sacrificing pieces of his life for theirs, he will be there. As long as he has Ed, he will do whatever it takes.

Roy strokes a thumb over Ed’s cheek. “Even if this being is half of me, my opinion is irrelevant. I’m not the person who’s going to sacrifice his body or risk his life. Whatever your decision is, I'll be right behind you.”

Ed’s eyes drop. His flesh hand curls into the front of Roy’s shirt. “They’re the size of a lemon,” he says. “Their kidneys are functioning. They can make faces, suck their thumb. They might even have hair.”

Roy knows. He read that paper while he iced his hand. He almost wishes he hadn’t.

“Abortion,” Ed starts, the word prickling Roy’s skin in unease, “is a very gray area for me. I’ve always been firm that it’s the choice of the one who is pregnant. It’s _their_ body. I never had to stop to think ‘would I?’” He pauses. “But now that I have, I’ve decided no. I can’t. It doesn’t change the fact that everyone should have a choice, but – _fuck_ ,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut, clinging harder to Roy’s shirt. “I think of giving up my arm for Al’s life. I think of the night Nina’s was snuffed out for no _fucking_ reason. And I can’t. _Ever_. Consider being the reason this life is lost.”

Ed's hand loosens from Roy's shirt, drifting down to splay across his own stomach. “I’m having this baby,” he says resolutely, and Roy’s heart leaps in hope. But Ed doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. He won’t meet Roy’s eyes, his expression bleak and mouth turned down at the corners.

This should be good news. It clearly isn’t.

“But you don’t want them,” Roy concludes softly. A shiver wracks Ed’s body at the poorly veiled disappointment in his tone.

“I need you to understand,” Ed starts, but stops when his voice cracks. “I need you to understand,” he repeats, steadier now, “that I still have my promise to keep. I told Al nothing would stop me. And I meant it.”

Roy’s heart sinks. The instinctive joy that bubbled up, fizzles out.

“I’m making the choice to bring this child into the world,” Ed says. “And you need to decide what will be done with them.”

They lay there in silence. Roy hasn’t even considered this. His instincts have fought to run the show from the start, and they’ve done their job well, because to them, if there is a pregnancy, then there would be a baby, and therefore he would be a parent. Bing, bang, boom. Having a baby and not being a parent just weren’t compatible.

He’s torn between desperately wanting to say something and the overwhelming fear that whatever words he has to offer won’t be enough.

“We could find someone who wants to adopt,” Ed says. “Teacher- she’s been doing better lately, I don’t know-” he cuts himself off and just breathes. Roy’s arm circles tighter around his waist. Ed is trembling.

“If you- if you decide you’d rather just take the baby and leave me for putting Al first-” Ed takes a huge, shuddering breath. “I won’t stop you. No hard feelings either. I _swear_.”

The mere thought makes Roy cling to him harder. Were these his only options? Send their child away – possibly to a stranger – or his mate would leave? Did Ed not want them that badly? Because, fuck, the thought cuts, almost as deeply as there being no baby at all.

“If you want to do this together - at least, as together as we can-” Ed starts and stops, igniting some guarded hope in Roy’s heart because at least it’s _something_. It takes Ed a few breaths of scrounged up bravery to finish. “Nothing would make me happier.” He swallows, hard. “But I’m not going to be capable of being an equal parent – I may never be - and I don’t want you to come to resent me for it. I’m still going to have to go on missions and my and Al’s own searches and risk my life, and if- if someday I don’t come home-”

 _You need to be ready to do this all on your own_ goes unsaid.

“And I understand how much that’s asking of you,” Ed says, “but I would never, ever forgive myself for not trying.”

Those sacrifices flit through Roy's mind with a vague snap - the time, the money, the energy, his goals - but none of them matter. His heart aches at the thought of these things ever meaning more to him than his family. He loves them so fucking much it hurts.

He cups Ed’s cheek, tilting his face up. Ed’s eyes are glimmering in the faint light, his lashes dark and damp. “I could never imagine a life where I wouldn’t want you,” Roy tells him. Ed squeezes his eyes shut and his body heaves as if he’s trying to keep from crying. “I said I would be here. I meant it.”

Ed manages a few choked breaths before he pulls away to look up at Roy, eyes glassy. “We’re doing this?” he asks, as if he hadn’t heard right, as if it’s too good to be true.

“We’re doing this.”

The full weight of Ed hits as he launches himself into Roy’s chest, sending Roy sprawling onto his back. Another alpha may have taken it badly, but their dynamic has never been conventional, and Roy’s arms reflexively come round to encircle Ed’s waist and pull him tight. Their hearts thrum erratically, out of cadence, but separated by no more than muscle and bone, they beat together.

They’re doing this.

They’re going to have a _baby_.

They have 26 weeks – quite possibly less – to be ready, and they have so much to figure out in that time that the task seems unbelievably daunting. But they’ll figure it out, one way or another. Just more hurdles to either jump or plow through, and at the end of the race, every single one will have been worth it.

For the first time in nearly a day, they're free to fully scent one another and they do just that, taking turns mouthing one another's glands and bond marks, working as best as they can to erase the immeasurable amount of stress they nearly drowned in, until Ed has had enough of him and finally pulls away. Roy, mouth watering and head fuzzy, is too high on Ed's hormones to follow, just content to have him close, but he does turn his head to watch him.

Ed rolls onto his back, too, and sighs. “I wish Al was here."

“I know you do. He’ll be home in two days, and we can all figure this out together.”

Ed’s eyes widen. “We’re going to have to tell people.”

“We already have.”

“We’re going to have to tell _more_ people.”

“Well. Yes.”

“They’re going to know we fucked,” Ed whispers in horror, and Roy laughs.

“I think that’s the least of our worries.”

“Can we stop worrying for today?” Ed asks. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Of course, Ed.”

Ed brings his automail hand up to cover his eyes. They've got to be tired, and the metal must make a nice cold pack. “I can’t remember the last time I cried so much. Fuckin’ gross,” he mutters. Roy won’t comment on that, even though it’s not gross and Ed has every right to bawl an ocean into the middle of Amestris if he so desires.

He rolls onto his side and nudges his nose into the gland behind Ed’s ear, huffing lightly, and just allows himself to bask in Ed's scent alone. He glances up to meet Ed’s eye peeking through his metal fingers.

“What do I smell like?” Ed asks.

“Plants.”

“That’s it?” He sounds decidedly unimpressed.

Roy nuzzles up against his skin and breathes. “It’s lovely.”

“Doesn’t sound too great.”

“It’s more than that, though. It’s like…something growing.”

“Weird.”

Roy leans up on his elbow, palming his chin and just looking at Ed, admiring the contrast of his golden skin against his black clothes, the tangled halo of hair beneath his head. He reaches out to trace Ed's collarbones with his fingers. “Have you ever walked in the woods after a storm?" he asks. "When the ground is damp, the water’s dripping from the leaves, and it’s just so-”

“Petrichor,” Ed interrupts.

“Petrichor?”

Ed drops his hand. “Petra; stone or dry earth. Ichor; the blood that flows through the veins of the gods.”

Roy quirks an eyebrow.

“Like earth after rain,” Ed clarifies.

Roy leans in and Ed arches his neck to allow him full access. “That’s it," Roy breathes. "Exactly.”

Ed hums. “Mom taught us about it. I loved that smell when I was a kid.”

Roy cuddles up close, wiggling an arm under Ed's pillow and tucking his chin above Ed's shoulder so he can lay as close to the source as possible. He lays a hand on Ed's belly and for once, the omega doesn't flinch. “I’ve spent the better part of my life waiting for it. It always means my period of uselessness is over.”

It’s Ed’s turn to laugh, light and sleepy. “So dramatic.”

Perhaps he’s right, but it holds true.

They could hand Roy the führership tomorrow, but he can’t imagine ever feeling as eminent as he does now.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tw](https://twitter.com/butbythegrace1) | [tu](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters love to be long and my mental health hasn't been the best, so thank you for your patience.

 

 

A baby. A tiny human. Someone they’ve come together to make.

Roy’s excitement seems to grow by the hour as he gets more and more accustomed to the idea. He’s sure he’s making starry eyes every time he looks at Ed and especially at his belly, but he can’t help it. It’s just so incredible. _He’s_ so incredible. Fearing Ed’s sensitive gag reflex, though, Roy doesn’t say this and just settles for awestruck expressions that make the omega roll his eyes and blush.

Ed is more subdued. He’s quiet and spends a lot of time alone in his nest, and Roy gives him space to do so, though it’s a struggle. He wants to dote on him at every moment and every turn, but Ed is already stressed to the limit. It keeps Roy grounded and reminds him that he is, too.

They found out on Friday. Saw the doctors on Saturday. Spent Sunday in shocked silence. It’s all happening too fast and he can just _feel_ the cloud – of fear, of dread, of the unknown – hovering over them. The thought of having a baby is nerve wracking enough but the demands this specific pregnancy makes are overwhelming. So far they’ve lucked out, but they’ll need more than luck to hide this from the world.

They barely have time to start wrapping their minds around it all before it’s Monday. Al is coming home. And they have to tell him.

Ed is terrified of what his reaction will be. Roy is certain he’ll be ecstatic but Ed is just as sure he’ll be pissed, like a parent disappointed in the careless decisions of their teenager. He doesn’t outright admit this but it’s evident in lines such as “I’m going to be another teen parent statistic” and various phrasings of “he’s going to kill me”.

And _he_ calls Roy dramatic. If anything, Roy assumes this hypothetical anger would be directed at him for being the one to _get_ Ed pregnant, but he honestly doesn’t see how Al can fault either one of them. It wasn’t as if they’d known this could happen and chose to play with fire anyway.

The only given is that Al will be be shocked, and shocked people just aren’t easy to predict.

Ed insists on picking Al up from the train station alone, which is fair. He and Roy would eventually garner some suspicions if they went everywhere together and Hawkeye probably wouldn’t be too invested in the idea of Roy leaving work early anyway. But it’s Ed also insisting on breaking the news to Al right when they get home that makes Roy want to protest. That’s a full two hours before he makes it out of the office and he’d really, _really_ like to be there. He doesn’t want to seem like someone hiding from what he’s done, and of all those they choose to tell he has a feeling Al will be the most thrilled by the news. He hates the thought of missing that initial reaction, even if Ed claims it carries a high probability of being joined by a lot of yelling.

And yes, maybe his alpha is feeling a little proud. It would love to point at Ed’s belly and let everyone know “I did that” whenever given the chance, but base instincts always err on the side of dramatic, so it’s not even Roy’s fault he wants to brag a little.

But if this is truly how Ed wants to do it, then Roy will let him have it. It’s not the end of the world and they don’t have the time to be picky about how this is done. The pregnancy is edging in on halfway over already. They’ve got so much time to make up for, and Ed does know his sibling best, so maybe avoiding the possible initial yelling isn’t too bad of a deal.

Riza still sends him home an hour early and he doesn’t ask any questions. He’s been distractedly nervous and therefore mostly useless for the entire day, so he likes to think she’s simply cutting her losses. Even in his eagerness, he decides to walk instead of calling a driver. The days are starting to grow shorter and the sun is already edging toward its descent, bringing with it a chill that Roy doesn't mind. A little fresh air and time to clear his head before getting home will do him some good.

The nerves don’t really hit until he reaches the bottom of his driveway. Should he ready himself for a bone-crushing armored hug? The books he’d lent Al being pitched at him with purpose? He hasn’t a clue, but if he can survive the first few minutes, it should be smoother sailing from there.

He steps up onto the porch, summons his bravery, then opens the front door and steps inside.

The first thing he hears is Ed say, “No Al wait!”

That can’t be good.

Then suddenly Al is towering over him and Roy is reminded that Al is nearly seven feet tall and only looks like it when he’s angry.

Ed comes skidding in behind his brother, waving his arms to get Roy's attention, but Roy is already reflexively offering Al his hand, their customary greeting. When Al steps forward to take it, he yanks Roy in just enough to make him take a step. It strikes fear deep in his soul.

“Ed told me everything,” Al says lowly.

Roy swallows. “I see.”

“And I’m _extremely_ disappointed.”

Roy can only nod. He’s starting to think the pregnancy pheromones have somehow turned off his ability to think and speak properly. Or it could still be the fact that Al is over seven feet tall and is clearly pissed off, as Ed predicted, just not _at_ Ed. Either that or Ed has already been yelled at and now it's Roy's turn.

Al lets go of his hand and crosses his arms. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m taking full responsibility,” Roy says.

“Well I would hope so! Ed said it was all your idea!”

Roy shoots Ed a look. “Did he now," he says. In addition to waving his hands, Ed is now also mouthing ‘no’ with each sweep of his arms.

“Well, wasn’t it?” Al asks expectantly.

Roy hesitates. Ed's still holding his hands up, palms out, the universal sign for 'stop'. His protests have toned down to a steady, slow shake of his head, eyes wide and pleading. Roy takes this to mean to not correct Al, which may be the best course of action right now. Ed truly has gone through the hardest part of breaking the news. Surely Roy can pick up some of the slack of this initial anger.

“I listened to him,” Roy says. It's not a lie, and a reasonable enough confession. “He was in heat. I shouldn’t have listened to him.”

Ed covers his face with his hand, which at first Roy interprets as can-we-not-discuss-our-sex-life-with-my-brother embarrassment.

But then Al falters, the shift in his armor and voice giving away his surprise. “Wait. What are you taking about?”

A little chill trickles down Roy’s spine. His eyes narrow. “What are _you_ talking about?” he asks.

Thankfully Al's tendency to be stubborn arises far less often than it does in his brother. “You went into my room and took my first edition Lockheed,” he explains slowly, as if for the fifth consecutive time.

Ed, rightfully, looks like he wants to disappear.

Roy can picture what happened immediately. Ed starting the confession, trying to say it, but then chickening out and blaming Roy for an offense he hadn’t even committed. To Al's most precious possessions, no less. Al _had_ ambushed him at the door pretty quickly, but Ed could have at least spoken up and helped him out, but no. He'd just let Roy walk right into it.

Al is waiting for an answer, and he’s going to strike on any fumbling like a hawk.

“Ah, yes. Exactly,” Roy hastily agrees, because for all Al knows, Ed had gone through his October heat. Several degrees of apprehension flit across Ed’s face. “He suggested I use it to - look something up. But it didn’t leave the room, I promise.”

Al’s helmet turns as he eyes Roy in suspicion. “What were you looking up in the middle of-” he starts to ask, then stops as he thinks better of it and holds up a hand. “Never mind, I don’t even want to know.”

“I apologize for betraying your privacy and trust,” Roy says.

He glares at Ed, the traitor. Ed glares right back. Roy takes back what he said about loving Ed’s atypical traits. When did he every make those claims? Never aloud. There’s no proof.

Al looks between the two of them, checking for cracks in the story, then accepts it with a sigh. “I live with two adults but still need a lock on my door. You two are jerks.”

“I’ll pay for whatever kind you’d like,” Roy tells him.

“As if,” Al grumbles. “I’ll just start sealing it shut.”

Roy is not brave enough to argue with him. He’d let Al completely remove the door and alchemize his way in and out of the room if he wanted and they both know it.

Al stalks off to his room with the air of someone getting ready to revisit the damage of a natural disaster. Ed attempts to follow but Roy postures and stops him in his tracks. Unlike most omegas Ed is usually pretty resilient to alpha posturing when not in heat. His problem is that he tends to challenge alphas back, just as he does now, squaring his jaw and shoulders and glaring.

“What the _hell_ Ed?” Roy hisses.

“I was going to tell him, I swear, but you came home early!” Ed hisses back.

“So you decided to just stand there while I _drowned?”_

“I tried to stop you!” Ed says. His bright eyes flick to the hallway. Underneath all that pride he’s still an omega, still has the instincts of a prey animal, and he’s thinking about running.

Roy rolls his shoulders and that gets Ed’s attention back. “You could have _said something_ -”

“Wasn't it best to just let it be over with?” Ed asks. Then, “Isn’t this what you _wanted?”_

That strikes something primal. He knows what he’s doing by appealing Roy’s alpha, but Roy still sees through it, sees Ed chamber his knee, pivot his heel. It’s really his eyes that make his next move loud and clear: they break from Roy’s, and the façade is over.

Ed makes a leap for the hallway. Roy reaches out and snags him by the hood of his coat with the intent to yank him back in, because if Ed thinks he’s getting off that easy, then Roy has some news for him.

Ed is far too accustomed to hand to hand combat. He lets his arms follow the pull and slips right out of his coat, then scrambles out of Roy’s reach and down the hall, taking a mad dive into Al’s room. There’s a muffled “What the hell Ed?!” which receives an overly emotional _“I just missed you so much Al!”_ in response.

Roy quietly seethes at the coat in his hands. He desperately wants to drag Ed back, throw him onto the nearest surface and pin him until he submits. He’s practically itching with it, but it probably wouldn’t bode well for him to confront Ed in Al’s room when he’d just apologized for being there without permission.

Roy sends one last begrudging look down the hall, then drops Ed’s coat on a hook before ridding himself of his own. He isn’t sure what to do next. His brain is stuck on the next step – Tell Al – and nothing else makes sense until he checks that off. He settles for making tea and settling at the kitchen table, waiting for the brothers to reemerge. It, at least, gives him some time to think things over and calm down.

In a way, Ed is right. Roy _is_ getting what he wanted. He gets to be here when Al first hears the news. He gets to witness the spark, the fresh thrill. The utter _joy_. Al is going to be the most excited uncle that has ever existed.

By the time Al enters the kitchen with Ed slinking in behind him, Roy’s decided it will be much more fun to watch Ed squirm than to call him out. Still, sometimes he likes to think he’s an optimist, so he gives Ed the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just needed Roy’s supportive presence. Maybe he’ll do it now.

Al seems to have forgiven Roy’s supposed transgression, at least for the time being. They make it through over half an hour of small talk – covering Al’s trip, how he’d enjoyed helping with the automail when he could even if Winry kicked him out after five minutes both times, that hopefully he’d chopped enough firewood to get them through the winter, etcetera – before Roy comes to terms with that fact that Ed, who was so eager to have his brother home and share this burden with him, has suddenly become too nervous to say anything.

Roy pities him, just a little. Not that he’s going to forgive him for trying to con him into breaking the news. No, Ed is well and truly on his own now.

They linger at the table after the conversation lulls. Ed, wisely, has settled across from Roy instead of his usual spot next to him. Al sits at the head of the table, reading the book Roy had picked out for his birthday but felt it was better given to him now. It’s soon to go from a ‘sorry for borrowing your irreplaceable book without asking’ book to a ‘I got your brother pregnant but please don’t hurt me’ book, but as long as it’s still the former it keeps Al occupied enough to not notice the silent conversation going on right in front of him.

Hands clasped around his empty mug, Ed pointedly looks at Roy, then Al, and back to Roy. _You do it._

Roy stares at him, indifferent. _No_.

Ed clenches his teeth and indicates his brother with a tilt of his head. _You. Do. It._

Roy looks at the ceiling. _I’ve no idea what you mean._

“You said you would!” Ed snaps aloud.

“No,” Roy says, correcting him. “You said _you_ would, after I offered to do it together.”

Al looks up from his book. “Do what together?”

“Pick you up at the train station,” Ed says. “But the bastard was too busy.”

“Why would I offer if I was ‘too busy’.”

Ed shrugs. “I don’t know your life.”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Roy says, offended. There are few things that can rattle his composure. Ed happens to rank number one. “You refused, then tried to rope me into doing it on my own and I _do not_ appreciate it.”

“Quit giving Roy a hard time, Brother,” Al says. He turns a page. “It would have looked weird with him there anyway.”

Ed switches tactics. He stealthily peels away his scent patches, taking advantage of the fact that Roy will be the only one to notice, and bares his neck. The action itself immediately grabs Roy’s attention and then the scent hits; enticing, sweet. He wants to surge in, to taste it, to layer his scent on top it, to mix them together.

His jaw twitches.

“You’re not too busy now,” Ed tries.

First trickery, now bribery? He underestimates just how peeved Roy still is.

Roy shakes his head. “Offer is off the table.”

“I’m already home,” Al says. His tone is steadily growing less patient.

Ed’s seductive cover disintegrates into irritation. He’s just as easy to break as Roy is. “Jerk,” he says.

Al lowers his book. “You’re not really talking about picking me up from the station.”

“Are too,” Ed lies, and Al homes in on him.

“You are not and you’re hiding something from me. Either tell me or don’t, but quit acting like I’m as dense as you.”

“I am _not_ -”

“So dense you think you can fool me?” Al says, and Ed glares. “You sounded weird on the phone and you’ve been acting weird ever since I got home and Roy at least has the decency to not pretend something isn’t weird.”

There’s a brief silence.

“It’s not…that weird,” Ed tries, but it's a rather unconvincing effort.

Al looks at Roy. Ed looks at him too, but his pleading eyes won’t help him this time.

“It’s very weird,” Roy says.

Al slams his book shut. “Edward Elric so help me-”

“Okay, okay!” Ed concedes with a wave of his hands. He runs them through his hair and Roy thinks he may be shaking. It’s a good thing Al has no sense of smell because he absolutely reeks of nerves. “So. Al. Y’know how Roy and I are – involved. And stuff.”

“Seeing as we live here and you share a bed, yes.”

“Right. And we are involved because of – biological urges.”

“And the inability to control yourselves,” Al says. “Yes.”

“Yeah. Well,” Ed says, rubbing the back of his neck. “About that.”

“About what?” Al asks, annoyed. “What’ve you gone and done now, Ed?”

Ed holds up a hand. “Just know that you are no longer allowed to hit me.”

Al glances at Roy – who’s playing the best poker face he can manage – and then back to his brother.

“You’ve already marked one another. How much worse can it get?” he asks. “It’s not like he can get you pregnant.”

Neither of them expects Al to say such a thing. Ed’s eyes widen as he finds himself caught in the headlights of an outlandish statement that he can’t even deny. He really is lucky Al is the one to say it. It’s like someone ripping off a band-aid one second sooner than they said they would, but at least it’s over with.

The silence is long. To say Al doesn’t catch it would be insulting. No, he’s just waiting for the negative affirmation, and yes, he very much notices its absence.

“Brother,” Al says slowly. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Ed still won’t answer him. Roy won’t even look at him.

“Ed,” Al says in warning.

Ed buries his face in his hands.

Al gasps. “Oh my god.”

“Al-” Ed says, voice muffled by his palms.

“Oh my _god_ Ed-”

“Alphonse-” Roy tries, but Al’s focus is very much on Ed, who is undoubtedly the star of this scene.

“You’re _pregnant?”_ Al hisses.

“I can explain!” Ed cries, then pauses. “Well, actually, I can’t. Exactly.”

“You- you _idiot!”_ Al shouts.

“What?”

“How could you?!”

“What’d I do?!”

“Well I assume you weren’t using protection for – _this –_ to happen!”

“We were too!” Ed screeches, and then blanches in realization. “Except. Except once, this time.”

 _“What?!”_ Al yells. “Don’t you know it only takes _one time_ , Ed?!”

“How is this my fault?!” Ed cries. “I’m not supposed to be able to _do_ this! Why are we even having this conversation?!”

“You are the epitome of Murphy’s Law!” Al yells back. “You should have known better! And now I’m going to be an uncle because my brother is an utter idiot!”

Al gasps and Roy can just _feel_ the shift.

“I’m going to be an _uncle?”_ Al asks with a squeak.

The sudden whiplash in mood leaves Ed speechless, confusion clear and sharp on his face, mouth open as if he’s still ready to argue.

“You’re going to be an uncle,” Roy agrees, because that damn alpha just needs a brag or it’s going to keep nagging him until it gets one, that and he needs to stop Ed from saying something that has a high chance of getting him yelled at some more.

Al _screeches,_ elbows to his chest and hands to his face as he wiggles in his seat. If armor could grin ear to ear it would be now, but Al settles for clutching his gloves into fists and vibrating at a frequency a few hertz off from shattering glass.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to cry more in this armor than I do right now,” he declares solemnly.

With Al clearly overjoyed and past the worst of his shock, Ed finally relaxes. After watching fear pinch him at every corner for the past few days his relief is a beautiful thing to see. “I’d cry ’em for you but I’ve already done that more in the past few days than the past six years combined.”

“Oh, Ed. All those signs. Your being sick- and you were always nesting and tired and clingy-”

“How was I _clingy?”_ Ed asks, offended.

“You used me as a pillow for three days and then cried when I left,” Al says, and that shuts Ed right up. “When did you figure it out?”

“Friday,” Ed tells him.

“Oh," Al says softly. "That was just a few days ago. You’ve got to be in shock still, and I just yelled at you.”

“’s fine. Honestly you were calmer than I expected.”

“What are you going to do?” Al asks, his voice pitching in worry. “It’s not like you can tell the military, right? How are you going to find a doctor?”

“The military can’t find out,” Roy agrees. “We paid Knox a visit over the weekend and he referred us to a friend. They’re the only others who know.”

Al turns to his brother. “And they confirmed you really are pregnant?”

“Yep,” Ed says. “Do you wanna see the heart beat?”

“You- of course!” Al says in delight.

Ed flashes a grin. “Be right back.”

He scampers off, leaving Al and Roy staring at each other.

“I simultaneously want to hit and hug you,” Al tells him.

Roy nods. “Fair enough.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Exponentially terrified.”

Al nods. “Good. Me too.”

Ed returns, unfolding the graph paper and smoothing it out in front of Al. “This is my heart beat,” he says, tracing his finger across the waves. “And right _here_ starts the baby’s.”

“That’s amazing,” Al whispers in awe. “How far along are you?”

“Fourteen weeks,” Ed answers. He leaves the paper in front of his brother and reclaims his seat.

"Fourteen weeks? You’re over a third of the way done, Brother.”

Ed blinks. “I guess so.”

“This is unreal.”

“You’re telling me. You’re not hosting a parasite in the reproductive parts you didn’t know were functional.”

“ _Brother_ ,” Al says sharply. “They are _not_ a parasite, they’re a baby. _Your_ baby. They might be able to hear you, you know.”

“You think so?” Ed asks in surprise, hazarding a glance down at his stomach.

“You haven’t done any research at all yet, have you?”

Ed glares, but doesn’t deny the very little he and Roy have both done, which is nothing more than skim over the papers Lacefield had handed them.

“Ugggh,” Al groans dramatically. “No wonder you got knocked up.”

“I literally found out three days ago,” Ed snaps. “And getting an armful of pregnancy books from the library is the kinda thing I would get some attention for.”

“Have you done _anything?_ ”

“I went to the doctor, didn’t I?”

“There’s so much more to do,” Al says, staring off, as if making a list. Roy has already made and revised it multiple times. They need to do research, about pregnancy, babies, and parenting. They need to make room for a nursery, get all the things a baby needs, and find childcare. But, most importantly, they need a cover story.

“The most urgent matter is coming up with a way to hide it,” Roy says.

“Easy,” Al says, and Ed scoffs.

“I mean other than the fact that according to the doc I’m going to be the size of a planet,” he says.

Roy gives him a flat look. “That isn't what he said, Ed.”

“I still think the military is going to notice a beach ball under my shirt.”

“Tell them you outgrew your automail,” Al says simply.

Roy and Ed pause at the obvious genius of it and look at one another.

“That’s…a very good idea,” Roy says.

“Recovery is about a year, year and a half. That gives me some leeway with the timeframe of going back to work,” Ed says. “I’ll just keep my head low until then,” he adds with confidence, like he’s ever kept a low profile a day in his life.

“It’s more than just keeping your head low,” Roy points out. “You won’t be able to leave the house until your ‘surgery’ is over.”

“So with the operation and post op, about a month,” Ed says with a shrug. “That’s not so bad.”

“I’ll be here to keep him company,” Al chimes in.

“See?” Ed says. “It’ll be fine.”

“You’ll need a hobby though,” Al tells him. Ed makes a face.

“I have a hobby.”

“No alchemy,” Roy reminds him.

“No alchemy?” Al echoes. The pitch of his voice knocks some guilt into Ed’s eyes, and the mood shifts. Ed's ease can never last for long.

“Doc doesn’t recommend it,” he says with a sad smile. He stares at the rendering of their baby’s heart beat. “Our few month break is turning into a year.”

Al reaches over without hesitation and puts a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “We’ll get my body back in time. You’re doing something very important right now,” he says. “This is a good thing, Brother. A beautiful, incredible thing.”

There’s a silence as Ed’s jaw works.

"It's okay, Ed," Al says, softer now. "I know we've always had each other - and living here this past year with you, Roy, it's been sort of like a family, but it's - it's hard to explain why it feels like this, but it's like for the first time since we were little, we're going to be part of a real family again."

Roy knows just what he means. He's always had Chris - and this past year has been wonderful in so many ways, turning them into a ragtag version of a family - but he can't remember the last time he'd felt complete in this way.

Ed blinks rapidly, the furrow between his brows going deeper the longer he's quiet. “D’you- what do you think Mom would think?” he finally asks, which takes Roy by surprise. It isn’t often that they discuss their mother, especially in front of someone else. He isn’t sure whether it speaks more of Ed’s hypersensitive emotional state or the high level comfort and trust that he feels in Roy’s presence, but he respectfully keeps utterly still and silent.

“She always took things in stride. Where other parents would have panicked at their toddlers doing alchemy, she was just so proud,” Al says softly. “She would be so proud of you, Ed.”

Ed bows his head, bangs shielding his face from them both. “You think so?” he asks in a clear struggle to keep his voice steady. Roy fights his instincts to protect and comfort, which he's sure would ruin this moment. He simultaneously feels like he doesn't belong here at all yet there isn't anywhere else he'd rather be.

“Do you even need to ask that?” Al asks. He reaches over to wrap a big, gentle arm around Ed’s shoulders. Ed’s body heaves at the contact, and Al’s hold tightens. “I can’t imagine how wonderfully happy she would be.”

 

 

They have no time to waste. Ed needs to be declared unfit for duty as soon as possible, and that means getting a letter of medical necessity from the Rockbells. But when Ed realizes falsifying automail replacement involves eventually telling them _why_ he needs to falsify automail replacement, he becomes a bit more difficult to reason with, which means he won’t go anywhere near the phone.

Of course, they’re not trying to break the full situation over public phone lines. That wouldn’t just be foolishly dangerous, but there’s no way Winry and Pinako would believe them even if they tried. Still, the plan to simply request the letter with the promise to explain why later crashes and burns as soon as the words ‘unfit for duty’ leave Al.

Winry is convinced Ed has destroyed his automail and is hiding from her and won’t stand to reason. In her defense, what little Al _can_ say does sound bad, and Ed refusing to talk to her screams nothing but guilt. She says if Al won’t tell her what’s happening, then she’ll come find out.

Al puts up little fight. She promises to hop on the next train to Central, and all they can do is wait.

“She’s going to kill you,” Al announces when he hangs up the phone.

“At least it will be in the comfort of my own home,” is Ed’s reply. He isn’t even upset, and Roy is sure this is exactly what he wanted.

 

 

“Did you know placenta is Latin for 'cake'?”

Roy stares at the newspaper spread out before him. He’s not reading. Ed sits across from him at the kitchen table. He's full of fun facts this morning, and each one makes Roy take a pause.

“I did not, no,” he answers. Fortunately, until this moment.

Ed taps the page his book is open to. “And that it can grow 50 kilometers worth of blood vessels. That’s how the baby gets their nutrients, you know. Like a little vampire.”

Roy isn’t sure whether or not he should be concerned about how Ed has so far referred to their baby as both a parasite and a vampire, but then again it is Ed, so it’s probably fine.

“Anything else you’d like to get off your chest this morning?”

“Fetomaternal microchimerism,” Ed says immediately. “A fetus’s cells will remain in the mother’s bone marrow for decades after birth without rejection. Basically these stem cells can wander and repair the mother’s body. Wild, huh?”

Roy blinks. Of all the things Ed’s shared this morning that’s definitely one of the tamest, and in favor of him sharing more facts at that end of the spectrum, he agrees. “Wild.”

He’s thrilled he stayed home for this. A large part of him didn’t want to – he and Winry don’t have the best relationship, to say the least, and Ed deserves to be thrown to the wolves on this one – but Ed can make incredible things happen when he bares his throat and whines, and it's not like Roy is blind to how fast things are moving. At the risk of keeping that trend, he prefers to be here if any major decisions need to be made. It was simultaneously a relief and concerning that Riza agreed he should take the day off, no fuss. At this point he’s sure she knows something is up, but he’ll take it at face value for now.

Being here for this also pleases his alpha immensely. It’s just itching for every chance it gets to share the news, and being present for this keeps its nagging down to a minimum.

So here he sits, staring at his coffee, waiting for Al to retrieve Winry from the train station, and being blessed with whatever information Ed considers noteworthy. Which, more often than not, is the nitty gritty of it. He knows it’s just a defense mechanism. Ed has thrown himself head first into research to distract himself from reality, and learning about placentas during breakfast is just a by-product of it. Roy supposes it's better than him actively avoiding the topic so he's done his best to go along with it. Al and Winry are due back any time though, so perhaps it would be ideal to start easing Ed in the direction they're soon to be heading in.

“You’re frighteningly calm about telling Winry you've defied the laws of nature,” he points out.

Ed shrugs. He turns the page. “She’s going to be so happy the automail is okay this is barely going to register on her radar.”

“Are you actually listening to the words you’re saying?”

“She loves babies. This is going to be the best day ever for her.”

Roy sighs. If Ed wants to live in ignorant bliss, who is he to stop him?

“How do you plan to tell her?” he asks. He half expects that Ed is going to wing it.

Ed doesn't disappoint. “I'll just let her figure it out,” he says confidently, gesturing to the table. It’s covered in literature about pregnancy. Al had gone to the city library the evening before and checked out six books on the topic – the max he was allowed – and sprinkled among them are the papers given to them by the doctor.

“I think you being pregnant is the last thing she’s going to deduce.”

“You have so little faith in her,” Ed says, as if this truly offends him.

“Ed, I don’t think _anyone_ would get it. Does she even know about us?”

Ed is quiet for just a touch too long. “I mean, I haven’t told her _explicitly_.”

Roy’s anxiety flares and curls in his belly. “So you're planning on surprising her not only with a baby, but a mated relationship?” _With the man she already isn't thrilled you're living with?_

Ed purses his lips, as if just now considering the fact that this is going to be double the amount of shock for Winry, if she even believes them at all.

“Maybe if we ask _really nicely_ , Al will do it,” he suggests helpfully.

Roy“She’s going to be on you the second she walks in the door, so good luck with that.”

“Ugh.” Ed sets his chin on the table. “She’s going to freak when she sees my automail is fine.”

“She isn’t going to be thrilled to think she’s come all this way for nothing,” Roy agrees. “The longer you put off telling her the truth, the more upset she’s going to be. And that’s why I think trying to let her figure it out on her own, or anything other than just telling her, is not a good idea.”

“Will you do it for me?" Ed asks, as if there’s even a chance.

“Tempting." Ed doesn't like the sarcasm in his tone. His eyebrows turn down in a frown. "But I don't think she would want to hear this news from me.”

"Why?"

"Why do you think, Ed?"

Ed rolls his eyes. “It's _fine_."

“Your definition of ‘fine’ terrifies me.”

“Still scared of her?” Ed asks, but his voice is soft and he isn't mean about it.

Roy closes his eyes. Always. He will always be scared of her. He stole her family and his human brain is not particularly interested in parading the start of his own in front of her. He isn’t sure he can ever put into words how wrong this feels. His only solace is that Ed knew about his involvement in her parents' deaths before they'd gotten involved and has only ever seen the relation as a tragic coincidence, though it still doesn't do much for Roy's conscience. He and Winry barely manage as acquaintances as it is.

Ed nudges his foot under the table. “Are you seriously more freaked about her than Al?” he asks, as if they don't have every reason to be.

Roy lets out a held breath. “She doesn’t know we’re together, she doesn’t know we’re marked, and now we’re going to throw a pregnancy on top of it all. I should probably be more worried than I am. In fact, it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to even be here. If I wasn't so sure Hawkeye is planning on how to interrogate me as we speak I honestly would leave for the office, right now.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Ed teases gently, his smile something like sympathy. The sound of the front door opening jolts him out of his cocky complacency. His eyes widen, and for the first time that morning he starts to look nervous.

“EDWARD ELRIC!” Winry shouts. “YOU’D BETTER NOT BE HIDING BECAUSE IF I HAVE TO DRAG YOU OUT BEFORE I KILL YOU I WILL MAKE IT EXPONENTIALLY MORE PAINFUL!”

“We’re here!” Al chirps.

“She’s not really going to hurt you, is she?” Roy asks in worry as stomping footsteps begin to make their way toward the kitchen.

“Nah. She just likes to yell.”

That dismissive claim doesn’t stop Ed from freezing in what appears to be terror when Winry comes charging into the kitchen. She brings with her the very mild scent of a person who has yet to present but with the unmistakable tone of anger. She stops short, staring at Ed’s perfectly fine automail hand as he pauses in turning a page.

“Hey Win,” he says while a nervous smile.

She sets her jaw and dives under the table, and Ed yelps as he sinks down several inches, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the table top. “What the fuck Winry!” he yells.

Winry reappears in the seat next to him, glaring. “Your automail looks fine,” she says suspiciously.

“No one said it wasn’t!” Ed snaps. “And hello to you too!”

“Then why do you need a letter from your automail mechanic claiming you’re unfit for duty and need refitting?”

“Yeah,” Ed drawls, rubbing his neck. “That’s…complicated.”

Winry glowers. “You’d better start explaining, then,” she says.

Al stops in the doorway, surely taking in this scene as gleefully yet nervously as Roy is. Winry blinks and looks over at Roy as if she’s just noticed him.

“Hello Colonel,” she greets smoothly. He’ll take smooth over the initially icy greetings he’d received when Ed and Al first moved in. Being accepted with this degree of civility is more than he can ask for. “I didn’t expect to see you until later. Sorry if your neighbors complain about the noise.”

“It’s fine, Miss Rockbell,” he dismisses. “It’s good to see you. I hope your trip was an easy one.”

“Easy as a night train could be. Thanks.” She turns her attention back to Ed, blue eyes landing on the book open in front of him. “Why are you reading a book about pregnancy?” she asks, and her eyes flit across the rest of the table. “Why are _all_ of these books about pregnancy?”

She gasps.

“Edward. Elric. I came all this way so you could tell me you got someone _pregnant?”_ she hisses.

“I _didn’t_ ,” Ed protests.

“How is that _not_ something you can just say over the phone?”

“Win-”

“How is that even _possible?”_

“I didn’t!” Ed snaps, louder this time, and points at Roy. “ _He_ did!”

Roy glares. Always pointing the finger at him, literally.

Winry looks shocked, as if her suggestion wasn't serious and can’t actually be the truth. She glances between he and Ed.

“But I – I thought you two were together,” she finally says, which leaves Roy pleasantly surprised and feeling that he indeed gave her too little credit. If she’s been aware about them and hasn’t said anything, chances are she’s accepted it, and he finds that immensely relieving.

“So you’re more shocked that _he’s_ the one to get someone pregnant?” Ed asks, so hung up on the implication of Winry’s response that it takes him a moment to process what she actually said. His eyes widen. “Wait. How the hell did you know?”

Winry crosses her arms. “I’m not _stupid_ Ed. For goodness sake. You’re so dense sometimes.”

“Told you,” says Al.

“Look who’s talking about dense, Winry. Do you not get it yet?” Ed asks, gesturing to all the books and papers littering their table.

“Brother, that’s not even fair.”

“What do you mean?” Winry asks in confusion, looking over the contents of the table again, as if it actually holds the answer. Ed’s probably drawing out this on purpose. If she's already accepted the fact that they’re together, then surely she’ll be able to handle this news with just as much grace.

“Winry,” Roy says with careful use of her first name, and she looks at him. “We’re having a baby.”

After a pause, Winry’s eyes narrow. “As in. You got someone pregnant on purpose and are going to raise the baby together?” she asks, and Roy realizes his choice of words could have been more specific. Or, ideally, he could have just kept his mouth shut. “I mean I understand you’re older-”

“ _Hey-_ ” Roy protests.

“-and biological clocks and all that, but isn’t this poor timing?”

Roy is a confusing mixture of human offense and fear and alpha satisfaction and he has no idea what to say. Ed’s nearly crying from trying not to laugh and has his face buried in his hands.

“Holy shit,” he wheezes. “The timing is poor, that’s for sure.”

Winry’s cheeks are slightly pink with embarrassment but she’s clearly more confused than anything. “I don’t understand,” she says.

“Ed, this is painful,” Al complains from the doorway. “Just. Tell her.”

Ed’s amused smile fades. Roy holds his breath.

“Win. I’m pregnant,” Ed finally says.

Winry stares.

“With his baby.” Ed indicates Roy.

Winry stares some more.

"And we're keeping them," he finishes.

Either she doesn't know what to say or she's waiting for them to tell her they're kidding. Ed remains stoic and silent. Roy can barely breathe.

“If this is your idea of getting out of me being angry for whatever you’ve messed up,” she eventually says, voice shaking, “it’s _not_ funny.”

Ed shakes his head. “It’s not a joke. I’m almost fifteen weeks.”

“Fifteen- with- his- _how?”_

Ed leans back and crosses his arms. “Well I went into heat and we fu-”

Roy holds out a hand. “I know you were nervous about people figuring that bit out, Ed, but it doesn’t mean you need to say it.”

Thankfully Ed goes quiet in consideration. “The way most babies are made, Win,” is thankfully what he decides on.

“But- male omegas can’t carry babies anymore.”

Ed shakes his head, his smile helpless. “I’ve taken tests. I’ve been to the doctor. I’ve heard its heart beat.”

“But-” Winry cuts herself off and doesn’t finish. She turns in her seat and looks at Al, still perched in the threshold. “This is real, Al? They’re serious?”

“I would say unfortunately, but I’m going to be an _uncle,”_ he says, voice filled with pride. He still hasn’t lost the squeak.

“And this is what you want?” she asks Ed.

Ed looks at Roy when he says, “More than anything.”

Winry claps a hand over her mouth and her eyes fill with tears and holy hell, Roy hopes they’re happy ones.

“Win,” Ed says with a smile. “C’mon. It’s okay.”

Winry wraps her arms around Ed and pulls him into a quick, gentle hug, as if he’s suddenly the most delicate thing in the world. She has to pull away to wipe furiously at her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just- so confused and happy and terrified for you. For both of you,” she adds, glancing at Roy.

“Thank you,” Roy says.

“God Ed, you didn’t need to lie to get me out here.”

“We didn’t lie, you just didn’t listen,” Ed says.

“Your automail looks fine though,” Winry says, then her face falls. “You aren’t hoping Granny and I will deliver the baby, are you?”

“ _Hell_ no,” Ed says. “I mean, briefly considered as a back-up plan. But this is so dangerous I could never do that to either of you. I’ve got a doctor, I just need a way to hide this from the military.”

Winry’s eyes widen. “Do you think they would hurt you?”

Ed shrugs. “Maybe? Best case scenario, they dump me. It’s not worth the risk.”

“So you’re going to cover this up with automail replacement.” Winry looks over her shoulder at Al, who’s still lingering in the doorway. “Not a bad plan, Al.”

“ _Excuse_ me,” Ed says indignantly. “How do you know it wasn’t my idea?”

“Was it?” Winry asks. Ed bares his teeth but remains silent. “My point exactly.”

“I’m pregnant and tired and I don’t see why it matters anyways.”

“It doesn’t but you’re also arrogant and you get on my nerves.”

“Look who’s talking,” Ed snaps back, and Winry slaps a hand on the table and opens her mouth to fire off a reply.

“Winry, would you like something to drink?” Roy interrupts, in hopes of halting their bickering.

Winry does relax, though she still glares at Ed. “Some water would be nice, thank you,” she says. The disparity in the way she speaks to Roy versus the brothers is glaringly obvious in instances like these, but he tries not to let it get to him. At least it’s brought some peace to the room.

He fills her a glass at the sink. She accepts it with thanks, but doesn’t drink, just stares at it. It must be sinking in.

“You okay Winry?” Ed asks.

She nods. “Yeah, I’m just – trying to imagine you with a baby. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever had to consider.”

“Even weirder than me having it with him?” Ed asks, leaving Roy feeling vaguely insulted but unable to do anything about it.

She shrugs. “I suspected that you two were together when you told me you and Al moved here,” she says. “You got weird about your hair while I worked on your arm. Always down, always over your shoulder. I went to brush it over once and you about took my hand off, and right then I knew.”

“That was, what – eight months ago?” Ed says in surprise.

“Yeah. I’ve had some time to think it over.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Oh I definitely did,” she says almost warmly. “Al and I talk about you all the time.”

Roy says “oh” at the same time Ed gives a drawn out “great”. Al studies the door frame, but lucky for him the two are too worn out to be terribly upset about it.

“Well it wasn’t like I was going to just _ask_ you,” Winry says defensively. “I just wanted to know if I was right, and I didn’t – I – it’s complicated, all things considered,” she says. She doesn’t look at Roy, thankfully. "So I decided to wait until you were ready to tell me. And it’s not like we talked about you in detail, or anything. I just wanted to make sure you were happy. That’s all.”

“It gets exhausting pretending sometimes,” Al chimes in. “It was nice to be able to acknowledge it with someone else.”

Reminding them that he too has sacrificed and suffered for their secret completely dissolves the already meager misgivings Roy had about being discussed behind his back. It would have been nice to know Winry knew and absolved quite a bit of anxiety in their coming out, so to speak, but they’re here now, and that’s what counts.

Ed hesitates. “Does, uh – Granny know?”

Winry scoffs. “No way. God knows what her reaction will be and I wasn’t going to be the one to bear it alone,” she says. “And that reminds me, I need to get a ticket home. Do you remember when the next train leaves, Al?”

She’s been here for all of twenty minutes and already wants to leave. Roy can’t blame her. It’s his house but he doesn't want to be here right now, either.

“No, but I’ll call the station and see about their schedule,” Al offers, clanking out into the hallway.

“All this way just to turn around and head back home,” Winry gripes. “Honestly Edward.”

“We tried to tell you not to.”

“Some job you did.” Winry crosses her arms. “I’m billing you for time spent.”

Ed fumes, but he doesn’t argue. All things considered, it's the least he can do.

“There’s a train leaving in a couple hours,” Al says when he reappears a few minutes later. “Plenty of seats left. The next one won’t leave till after the weekend. Something about track construction.”

“You’re always welcome to stay,” Roy offers because that’s the right thing to do, even though she’s never accepted and probably never will.

Winry flashes him a small smile. “Thanks, but I do have a lot of _actual work_ ,” she says, glaring at Ed, “to do at home.”

Roy is secretly grateful. He will never hesitate to offer her his roof – hell, she could use him as a doormat on the way in or at any point during her time here – but he’s relieved she doesn’t want to nonetheless.

“Well it was nice seeing you,” Ed says, leaning back over his book. “Thanks for coming out. Hope the ride back is a good one.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Winry says, pointing at him. “If you think I’m going to go back to Resembool and tell Granny for you, think again! You’re coming with me.”

Ed rolls his eyes. “Ugh, no.” Just like his brother, he doesn't put up much of a fight. He had to have known from the beginning that this is what would happen.

“Yes,” she insists. “She’s going to have way too many questions that I don’t feel like answering, and I’m probably going to start questioning my sanity and if this conversation ever actually happened. Besides, we need to get you measured and at least make it look like you’re getting a new set and get all the documentation for your leave worked out.”

Roy is suddenly very grateful he took the day off.

“I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday,” Ed announces smugly, which is the truth, and Roy doesn’t want him to go and agreeing to this is his chance to keep him here.

But that would be selfish and stupid. This has to be done now. The separation will be short and take them an enormous step forward. Parenthood will be a journey of many more sacrifices and the sooner they get used to it, the better.

“I’ll reschedule that for you,” Roy tells him. “The doctor even said this one is more about planning for things much later down the line.”

“I was going to get my due date,” Ed pouts.

“You could have sat down and done the math at any point. We can do it now, if you like,” Roy says. Then, softer, “You’ve been home for months, Ed. You’re lucky I haven’t been pressured to send you out by now. I think it’s more important to get this settled first so we can start establishing a paper trail. Then we can worry about everything else.”

“You know Roy is right, Brother.”

“Listen to your alpha, Edward.”

Ed snarls and Roy can tell he wants to pitch a fit at that one, but with three against one, he has no choice but to concede.

Winry’s luggage never leaves the front entry and is soon joined by Ed and Al's. Al, as he is with most things, is very good-natured about having to turn around and go back to Resembool. He's jumping into this chaotic mess of situation feet first without complaint, and to give credit where credit is due, so is Winry. Her reaction could have been several orders of magnitude worse. Yes, she's barely spent an hour under the same roof as Roy and refuses to go any longer, and is more or less unwilling to hold a conversation with him, but he is indebted to her. A team of people is quickly rising to keep Ed's life intact, and in doing so are saving Roy's as well. He would be utterly lost without his mate, and he doesn't even want to imagine how things could have been.

Since he's supposedly sick, the trio insist on walking versus Roy calling them a car, and he reluctantly agrees. He’s very nervous about being separated from Ed knowing he isn’t supposed to use alchemy and that as his alpha it’s his job to protect him. But Ed is terrifying even without alchemy, that and Winry and Al would never let anything happen to him. Roy has also thoroughly scented him, which isn’t an uncommon act between a traveling omega and trusted alpha. With Ed’s patches on though their scents don’t mingle, and it leaves Roy feeling a little bereft.

Ed will be fine. He won’t even be gone for that long, but it still tugs at his heart to see him go.

Winry sticks her hand out. “As Edward Elric’s automail mechanic, I officially declare him unfit for duty.”

Roy grasps her hand and shakes. “Thank you, Miss Rockbell.”

“I’ll get the official documents in the mail as soon as we get home.”

“Take good care of them,” Roy says, and Ed blushes, as he does every time Roy refers to both him and the baby together.

Al lifts both sets of luggage and he and Winry step outside to give the couple a moment of privacy.

Ed, as he has for some time, looks far older than he really is. His years can’t be counted by gray in his hair or lines on his face but by the exhaustion in his eyes. And god, does he look tired, more so than Roy can ever remember him being. Still, he smiles at Roy, Roy smiles back even though he feels a little lost.

“Some week, huh?” Ed tries to joke, but his eyes look a little too misty.

Roy gathers him in a hug, trying to convey as fiercely as he can his love for them both, and Ed clings to him in return. He smells like nothing more than a blank slate and Roy already misses him.

“April 6th,” Ed whispers in his ear.

Roy pulls back, brow furrowed. His eyes widen. “You knew this whole time.”

Ed grins. “I did the math when the first test came back positive.”

April. April 6th. Probably before even then, so March. They could be parents before spring is even here.

“Manipulative brat,” Roy says, though there’s no fire behind it, just wonder.

“Dramatic bastard,” Ed says, which is just as endearing.

Roy lifts Ed’s chin as Ed pulls him down by his shirt collar and they meet in the middle. The kiss is long and deep and far too sad for Roy’s taste. They’ve had less emotional good-byes when Ed’s gone on mission. He’ll only be away for a few days, but he may as well be leaving for the month he claims he is.

“Love you,” Ed breathes.

Roy slides a hand down low, smoothing over Ed’s belly, and breathes in what little of him he can. “I love you too.”

And then he has to let Ed go, and watch him leave, and shut the door behind him. It’s like he blinks, and his babies are gone, and the house is so fucking loud in its emptiness that it hurts.

 

 

Sometimes Roy isn’t sure how he survived before Ed. But that’s all he was doing, he supposes. Surviving.

He isn’t usually so affected by Ed leaving, for missions or repairs or general wanderings and inquiries, but this absence has struck him like a stone straight to the heart. He remembers how obsessive Maes would get over Gracia whenever he was away during her pregnancy, and he’s starting to understand why. Waking up in their nest to Ed’s scent and no Ed is enough for him to start slipping into a dark pit of nothingness.

He decides to remedy this loneliness by paying a visit to his aunt. He and Ed haven’t explicitly discussed who exactly they’ll be telling about the pregnancy, but as Roy’s only blood relative Chris is a given, and with Ed digging his heels in about telling people at every turn, Roy doesn’t think he’ll be too upset to come home and find one more person checked off the list.

At least, that was the plan. Roy gets it now.

This is the woman who took him in when he was barely a few months old, who raised and parented him to the best of her ability and to whom he is eternally grateful. She has always been one of his biggest supporters and best allies, but there’s something to be said when the madame of a brothel is taken aback by one’s choice in relationships. The period of time between when she’d learned Roy had become the heat partner to an early presenting omega and when she’d actually met Ed had been interesting, to say the least. Thankfully it took all of five minutes in Ed’s presence for her to come around.

Exceptions in most things, she’d said. Don’t go making a habit of it.

In a way, Roy had dutifully taken this advice when he and Ed marked one another. Of course she hadn’t quite seen it this way, and though the following months were some of the most stilted he’d had with her, again, she’d come around. She absolutely adores Ed and Roy knows within that tangible apprehension was nothing more than deep seated worry for both them and their goals. Throwing a pregnancy and child on top of it just might be what gives her a heart attack. In keeping with the trend of how breaking the news is going so far, the possibility doesn't feel far off.

He puts it off for a day. Then another, and another, and one more still and, suddenly, Ed and Al will be home the next day, and he’s run out of time.

He reminds himself that he doesn’t really have to do this now. In fact, if they wanted to keep it to themselves for another month or three it would hardly affect things at all. But Ed has told his family, and Roy is positively aching to tell his, and in the end no amount of apprehension is enough to stop him. Having her with them through this will prove to be invaluable.

He heads out for an early lunch and lets Hawkeye know he’s going to his aunt’s, which she never questions even though this time it looks like she really, really wants to. The bitter chill of the late morning doesn’t make the journey to the bar and opening its door any less nerve wracking but at least it hurries him along.

No matter how long it's been, this place will always feel like home. The smell of smoke and wood and the warmth of the red glass pendant lights immediately ease some of his anxiety in their soothing familiarity. It’s still early enough that the seats are bare of customers. A young blonde waitress Roy doesn’t recognize is sitting at a booth polishing glasses. He nods to her politely as he makes his way toward the bar where his aunt is leaning on the counter, watching him.

“Patroning my establishment during office hours on a weekday,” she greets as he takes a seat. Even though she's also an alpha her scent has always been a source of calm and comfort for him.

He gives her a cheesy, fake grin. “Out of character, I know.”

“Do you need a cover up?” she asks, referring to his bond mark. Her skill with makeup lends itself to good use when he and Ed have scheduled physical exams. The doctors wouldn’t blink twice at Roy for having a bite mark, but would definitely have something to say about Ed’s, especially if they both came out as marked with no other obvious mates.

“Not today,” he answers. “But if you could lend me some of your time and an ear, it would be appreciated.”

She raises an eyebrow, then turns to the rows of bottles behind her. She makes her selection and pours him a drink. He realizes that this will be the first he’s had in over a week, even if the victory is inadvertent. He accepts the glass but just stares at the amber liquid as it sloshes and settles.

Chris reaches under the bar and turns on the radio, tuning it to a jazz station and turning the volume up until the speakers tucked into every corner echo back to them.

“How’s my little spitfire?” she asks. Roy thinks she may be the only person on the planet to get away with calling Ed 'little'.

“He’s in Resembool, visiting family.”

“Yes. And how is he?” she asks again, slower and more insistent this time, as observant as ever.

Roy clutches his drink a little harder. “That’s…actually why I’m here.”

“Mhm.” She taps a cigarette out of an ornate silver case and lights it. The glow of the cherry reminds him of Ed’s coat. “So. What have you two gotten yourselves into.”

Roy takes a deep breath. “I’d like to start off by saying that you raised me with utmost respect for sexual knowledge, health, and safety, and for that I am forever grateful.”

“You’re very welcome, but if you’re looking for _tips_ Roy-Boy, I am not the alley to be barking up.”

“Absolutely not,” he says, trying to mask his mild horror. He doesn't miss the amused glint in her eye.

“Well,” she says. “What’ve you gone and done, then.”

Roy takes a sip of his drink, holding the whiskey in his mouth and letting it burn before it goes down. The heat follows, working loose the knot of dread in his stomach.

“Up until recently, I upheld respect of that upbringing,” he says. “Fifteen weeks ago, to be exact.”

There’s a beat of silence quickly followed by a moment of heat in his aunt’s eyes that speaks of hell waiting to be unleashed.

“You didn’t,” she says lowly, threateningly.

He shakes his head and smiles tiredly into his glass. “I assure you I didn’t.”

That heat quickly disappears as her eyes widen in realization. “He’s not,” she says.

“He is,” Roy breathes.

She stares at him. Roy has a feeling they’re going to go through a lot more staring before this is over.

“Lexie!” she barks at the waitress, whose head shoots up in surprise at the suddenness. It isn't her alpha voice, but commands respect just the same. “Go take a break. I’ll holler if I need you.”

The waitress glances at Roy curiously, but like all of Chris’s employees she doesn’t ask any questions. She disappears through the door that leads to the lounge, leaving them alone in the bar.

Chris takes a long drag from her cigarette and blows the smoke at the ceiling. “You’re absolutely certain?”

“Three months of symptoms and three positive pregnancy tests certain.”

“How did this happen?”

Roy shrugs. “We’re really not sure. Other than the fact that we skipped out on protection during his last heat.”

She sucks in a breath at that. “I wish I could say you should have known better, but honestly, Roy, it’s nobody’s fault. You couldn’t have been expected to know he was capable of…this.” She taps her cigarette into a glass ashtray. “Of course, you do have options.”

“We want to keep it,” Roy says definitively.

“I’m not sure if you know what you’re getting into,” she says, and Roy laughs helplessly.

“We’ve only begun to scratch the surface, so no. Probably not.” He traces a finger around the rim of the glass. “I know it’s not going to be easy. But I’ve never been more certain of something in my life.”

“Take it from someone who has seen a situation like this from every angle: no choice is easy.”

Roy drinks to that.

“I assume you’ve come here needing assistance finding a medical professional?”

Roy shakes his head. “We’ve already found one, actually,” he tells her. “But thank you for the offer.”

The corner of her mouth tilts up. “I don’t think there’s anyone in my network I would trust with my golden boy, anyway.”

“That’s what we assumed.”

“I’m proud of you. Of both of you,” she says, which is not what Roy expected. Nothing of this reaction is what he expected, but as he’s quickly learning, every aspect of this situation is unpredictable.

“Thank you."

“This is going to be very difficult to hide. I assume you have a plan.”

Roy nods. “He’s outgrown his automail and needs to be refitted,” he says. “Approximately a one-year recovery period, possibly longer. He and his mechanics have been working on the details.”

“Clever. His idea, I presume.”

“His brother’s, actually.”

“Such a treat, those two.”

“Truly.” Roy pauses. “You came to the correct conclusion pretty quickly,” he observes.

His aunt hums. “Do you by chance remember Marguerite Gibson?”

“Madame Maggie? The brothel owner in West City.”

“Yes.” She ashes her cigarette. “She, ah. Had a male omega fall pregnant almost 20 years ago.”

Roy’s eyes widen in surprise. “No shit.”

“Yes. He was young – only 18. Had chosen to take one of his customers during his heat, as was permitted after the customer had been vetted by her. He insisted they did use protection, but whether he did or not at that point didn’t matter.” She takes a hard drag off her cigarette. “Something she mentioned were side effects of pregnancy phasing out. His anatomy just wasn’t built to properly carry a baby so it was a very difficult pregnancy. He was in a lot of pain near the end, and there was no way he could deliver naturally. He had a cesarean and a hysterectomy at the same time.” She pauses, hesitant. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but these doctors who work under the table – they aren’t typically well-equipped for this type of situation.”

Roy steels himself for the horror he’s sure this will be. Mercifully, though, his aunt seems to understand.

“Let’s just say the only anesthetics involved were nitrous oxide and straight shots of liquor. He’s lucky he didn’t bleed to death. Clearly utterly traumatized. Wouldn’t even acknowledge the baby and as soon as he healed, he was gone. No clue what became of him.”

“What happened to the baby?” Roy asks.

“Mags took care of the little one for a few months before finding him an adoptive family. That was the end of it.”

It’s surreal to imagine a parent just leaving their baby behind after a hard-fought pregnancy and delivery. But at the same time, Roy does not know this man. He can’t even begin to conjure the nightmare he must have gone through, only to be handed something that would serve to remind him of it every second of every day.

Roy squashes the idea of Ed going through something similar as soon as it arises. There are too many what ifs and could have beens, too many heart wrenching scenarios to put themselves in, and if he lets each one gnaw at him there will be none of him left to enjoy the good, precious things too.

As if reading his mind, Chris says, “I’m relieved you’ve found an alternative. I could never hand him over to someone who would mutilate him like that. He’s been through enough.”

“He has,” Roy agrees, and leaves the past and its pain at that. “We’ve only seen this doctor once, and we haven’t yet gone over exactly how this is going to pan out – but he’s already more than we could have hoped for.”

“Who sent you to him?”

“Knox.”

She nods. “It’ll be fine. Just don’t go burning down any more buildings for him.”

“I have been accused of this far too many times in the last week,” Roy says flatly.

“Just – behave, Roy. It’s time to leave these carefree excursions behind.”

“Carefree,” Roy snorts.

“As your parental figure, I felt the need to say something like that at least once in your life.” She stubs her cigarette out and leans an elbow on the bar. “So how is it going to work when this little one arrives?”

The reminder that they've hardly planned for anything makes Roy clutch his glass. “We haven’t gotten to that point yet. One step at a time.”

“These are going to be some of the most difficult decisions you make in your life,” she tells him.

“Yes.”

“And raising a child is going to be the most difficult thing you do.”

“Yes.”

“Just imaging the two of you with a baby terrifies me.”

“Thanks,” he deadpans.

“But I like what I see so far,” she says. “I expect great things from you, and nothing less.”

“You taught me well. We would be grateful for any advice you have.”

Chris snorts. “Raising you was one thing. Raising one of those children is going to be another matter entirely.”

Roy grins. “You’re going to be a grandmother."

His aunt's face falls. “I will offer one free favor if you _never_ say that again.”

“Tentatively accepted," he says with a toast of his glass. He finishes it off before standing and pushing in his stool. It isn’t imperative he gets back to the office on time, but all the better if he does. “Thank you, as always. For everything.”

Chris nods, tapping another cigarette out of its case. She’s definitely earned it. “Don’t be a stranger. Keep me in the loop, let me know if you need anything. And tell those boys I'd like to see them once in awhile.”

Roy agrees and after adjusting his coat, bids her a goodbye.

He walks back to the office with a lighter step, a fuller heart, and thinks maybe - just maybe - they’re going to be able to pull this off.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tw](https://twitter.com/butbythegrace1) | [tu](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was shaping up to be over 12k so I’ve done some splitting and rearranging. Needless to say I don’t plan on the next one taking six months. :’) You all deserve a gold medal for your patience. I went from depression slump to being so busy with school I want to cry. 
> 
> I haven’t been completely unproductive during the lull though! If angsty turned sappy hurt/comfort is your thing, I did participate in RoyEd week with [this little situation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20268838).
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me. <3

 

 

It’s Al who calls in the morning to let Roy know he and Ed are going to board their train home in a few hours. It was also Al who called to tell him they arrived in Resembool safely, and other than that it’s been five days of radio silence. Roy has been on edge these five days, and even though there isn’t much they can safely discuss via phone, it still would have been nice to hear Ed’s voice. He does his best to hide his dejection and readies himself for the day to drip by as slowly as imaginably possible.

The letter from the Rockbells arrives the same morning and serves as a great distraction. As they’d discussed it declares Ed unfit for duty - citing ill-fitting automail that could be detrimental to his health and safety and overall usefulness - and so Roy begins the process of filing for his leave. The hand Ed had bitten during his nearly successful attempt at escaping the doctor’s office is still healing and complains at the sheer amount of paperwork that must be done, but the legalities turn out to be more of an issue than just being monotonous and achy. Ed’s absence has given Roy ample time to start working himself into an episode of mate withdrawal, and each line he fills with lies is echoed by the truth in his conscious.

Ed is pregnant. Ed is pregnant, and he isn’t here, and Roy can’t provide for or protect him.

He knows Ed would call him dramatic but he, quite simply, does not care. The constant reminder of their separation aggravates his instincts, wrenches his heart and riles him up and threatens to show up as something more intense than tight shoulders and shaky signature.

He sympathizes with Maes in a way he never has before. The man on one of his worse days was what Falman liked to call ‘emotionally generous’. Roy called him for what he was – annoying – and he still stands by his late friend being obscenely obnoxious much of the time. This became especially true when he was on assignment during Gracia’s pregnancy. Maes in mate withdrawal was emotionally generous dialed up to a ten. It really wasn’t his fault, but it was still pretty awful at best, and dangerous at worst.

The day it turned dangerous was also the day Ed arrived in Central for the very first time. Roy had put the brothers on that particular train so they would even be granted a chance at being taken seriously by the military and, if he was honest, a test of his own. He had no idea if they were even capable of what they claimed. He trusted the team provided to keep them safe if the need arose, but there was always a chance something could go very, very wrong. This had Roy more irritable and worked-up as it was, let alone with having to remotely get a handle on Maes, who was so distracted about being separated from his pregnant mate for _one fucking day_ that he couldn’t stop talking about it every time he called Roy with an update. Thankfully, once things did take a bad turn, Maes snapped out of it long enough to keep it together until the train arrived in Central.

Roy is sure that distraction is the reason Maes had ended up being shot for the first time since Ishval. It was clear distance was a factor in how strongly the symptoms of withdrawal presented. He wasn’t sent on another mission until after Elicia was born.

In contrast, Ed hadn’t received so much as a scratch. He was insufferably cocky about the whole thing until Roy decided it necessary to put him in his place, then became irritated and crude with both language and gestures, but he was _whole_ , and Roy has to keep reminding himself how resilient Ed has always been. That, and Al probably isn’t going to let Ed more than two feet outside of his radius, nor allow anyone with ill intent one step in.

He’s hoping this tension is the result of his and Ed’s sudden distance because if it’s not – if it really is just a side effect of pregnancy and he doesn’t figure out how to get these emotions under control - he’s going to have to start sneaking Ed’s scent patches to hide it.

If his men notice he’s feeling off they say nothing. Havoc and Breda are impressed Ed has grown enough to need a complete refitting of his automail, and Fuery asks Roy to keep them updated on the process as much as Ed will allow, to which the rest of the team agrees, sans Hawkeye, who quietly watches Roy with more closeness and concern than usual. It’s like he’s a child again, holding in a secret so big it threatens to rip him open at the seams, certain others can see it just by looking at him. When five o’clock rolls around he can’t leave fast enough. He feels her eyes follow him out the door.

He opts to walk home in hopes of working through some of his nervous energy. Clearly there’s no way he and Ed can keep this from the team for much longer. Hawkeye is always a few steps ahead of the rest, but they’ll catch on soon enough and it’s probably best Roy puts an end to that sort of thing before he finds himself the center of their bar interventions and harmless but annoyingly obvious stalking. He’s unsure of what their initial reactions will be but knows they’ll become invaluable allies, an extra layer of protection for his family. A pack will come closer together, knit fast and tight, to protect their most vulnerable members.

With Ed’s current track record, though, Roy would rather wait to make sure he’s actually told Dr. Rockbell the truth before he starts dragging anyone else into this. And, if he’s honest, he wants to be sure Ed actually comes home, because until the moment the omega sets foot in the house, Roy worries he won’t.

He worries Ed will realize an extra month of house arrest is too much, because at some point he’s going to become too obviously pregnant to leave. The impending winter will afford him the luxury of thick coats, but they’ll only hide so much of him for so long, and he’ll still be pregnant when spring rolls around and those coats are shed. It’s true Ed layers up well through spring and on into summer, but it’s nothing that could hide what’s to come. The expanse of time it’s necessary for him to stay hidden may only be a month, but it could be two or _maybe_ even three and it will be impossible to know until that time comes.

Roy hopes that Ed misses him just as much as he misses Ed, and that these few days they’ve spent apart are already too much. It’s nearly comical for him to worry. Instincts almost guarantee a pregnant omega to return to their alpha. It’s that _nearly_ , the _almost_ , that _atypical_ omega that Ed very much is which leaves Roy on edge. Ed isn’t so easy to predict as it is, let alone with all of the hormonal changes he’s going through.

This apprehension vanishes when Ed steps into the house and into his arms.  He looks tired and a little more than haggard but his smile makes all the worry and doubt drain from Roy’s body. It’s like the clamp on his chest releases and he can _breathe_ , he can breathe for the first time in days.

They are safe. They are home.

He barely registers the chilly evening air Ed pulls in with him, or that Ed’s coat has gone from red to black, no doubt an effort to keep from drawing unwanted attention as he slips back into the city. He sinks into the warmth of Ed's body and the teasing aroma of his soap and sweat and _not_ _enough_ , those damn scent patches that work all-too-well scratching at his cheeks as he rubs his face all over Ed’s neck. He catches the edge of one with his teeth without thinking, intent to peel it off, but Ed squirms and squeaks and raises his shoulder to knock Roy’s face away, his neck forever ticklish to teeth that aren’t rough enough to draw blood.

“Knock it off,” he says crankily, well within his right. It’s terribly rude at best to remove someone’s scent patches without permission, and besides, if they come off there isn’t much that would stop Roy from fucking him right there in the foyer and he doesn’t think that act is considered acceptable under Al’s code of law.

Ashamed of letting his impulsive instincts take control, Roy presses his lips to Ed’s forehead in apology. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re obnoxious,” Ed says, but there’s no heat to his tone and he doesn’t move away, settling in as Roy pulls him close. Roy smooths his hands over the black coat on Ed’s shoulders, down his arms and up his back, and Ed laughs softly. “You can stop checking me for damage, ’m fine,” he says, putting to words what Roy had thought was simply an urge to scent and touch his mate after being so starved of the contact.

It’s taking everything in him not to manhandle Ed up to their room; his instincts may be screaming that Ed needs to be scented and claimed and bodily worshiped, but Ed seems to be content as they are. Roy isn’t even sure if omegas feel the same effects of separation as alphas, and he’s already rocked the boat once so he does his best to function above his displeased instincts and live in the moment. He leaves control of the situation to Ed and just focuses on the rhythmic rise and fall of the omega's chest, his breathes quick but deep as he takes in his alpha’s scent. If Roy wasn’t so enthralled by Ed’s mere presence he may have felt jealous, but Ed makes that difficult as his hands knead into the fabric of Roy’s sweater, purrs bubbling straight from his chest to Roy’s core, and Roy holds him with the gentlest urgency he can convey.

It’s a painfully sweet reunion, so of course its sanctity is ruined by Ed, who suddenly shifts closer to grind against Roy’s leg, which is utterly maddening without being against house rules. Roy grabs his ass and pulls him close and tight to keep him still. It at least stops him from doing that tantalizing _thing_ with his hips but causes an entirely new problem when Ed starts to writhe and whimper and bare his neck while simultaneously trying to stand tall enough to mouth at Roy’s throat. He’s acting like an omega in heat and Roy starts to think he wasn’t as unaffected by their separation as he’d first thought.

“As much as I love the- _direction_ this is heading-” Roy starts, hissing when Ed’s canines scrape his collarbone, “I’m sure Al has foyer listed as ‘public space’ in the agreement we signed.”

“He dropped me off on his way to Gracia’s,” Ed tells him, which is strange because Al has never not come straight home after travelling, even if it was just to say hi before heading out elsewhere later.

Before Roy can even open his mouth to ask why, Ed makes a big show of slowly reaching up to his neck and pinching the little circle of plastic film between his fingers. Roy tracks his every move as he peels the patch off and flicks it to the floor.

It’s like a drug sent straight to his brain. Roy can _feel_ his pupils dilate, leaving the world suddenly wider, crisper, more vivid than ever, and yet somehow the issue of Al's absence was suddenly nowhere to be found and promptly forgotten. He surges in, past Ed’s mouth and to his neck, desperate. Ed cups the back of his head, fingers curved around the base of his skull to steady him. He just knows Ed is grinning, the brat, and he’d do something about it if he wasn’t already so damn _drunk_.

It’s like a feedback loop, each of them growing more and more frantic in response to one another's desperation until they’re just bare hands and hot mouths, bitten lips and marked-up skin.

Wonderful, wonderful, all-knowing Al. Roy decides his absence must be an offer to be as loud as they want, wherever they want, and also knowing future opportunities to do so will be severely limited, they take full advantage.

They both have reservations about sex on the sofa – Ed’s being guilt over ‘fucking anywhere his brother has to sit’ and Roy’s thoughts along a similar line – so Roy takes him bent over the back of it instead, Ed’s mismatched hands gripping the upholstery of the back rest, his hips canting back and his whines obscene as Roy pushes him further and further over the edge.

He’s gone, utterly and completely, nothing more than an animal chasing the scent of a river rushing through the woods, the air it dampens, and the plants it gives life to. Sweat bedews their shoulders and slick drips down their thighs, and when Roy buries his face in Ed’s hair, buries his moans in Ed’s neck, buries himself in everything that is Ed – he nearly drowns in it.

He comes up gasping and shaking and bowed over Ed’s body, fingers dug into his hips. Ed’s upper half is draped limply over the back of the couch, ribs heaving, body trembling in Roy’s hands and around his cock, and Roy realizes he’s knotted him, so far gone during it he’d been completely unaware of anything other than getting as close to him as possible. He loops an arm under Ed's waist to support him through it, murmuring praises into his neck as Ed whimpers and shivers, his flesh hand coming round to cradle the back of Roy’s head as they wait it out.

It takes several minutes to untie but it’s still quicker than the norm, driven by the sheer intensity of their reunion and not being able to properly position themselves after, because there’s not a chance Roy would ever lay his omega down on a cold hardwood floor.

Clean up is hasty and they barely manage to gather their clothes and stagger up the stairs before collapsing on their bed and settling into a comfortable tangle of mismatched limbs. Ed has somehow managed enough coherency to flick on his bedside lamp, bathing them in a soft hazy glow. They lay quietly, Ed’s head tucked under Roy’s arm while Roy cards fingers through his golden bangs. Their bodies still buzz on hormone high but at least the sated variety is easier to think around than the fuck-me-now ones.

It’s Ed who finally breaks the silence.

“God, that was fucking awful,” he says.

Roy’s chest pangs with guilt. He should have been more careful, but he can’t ever remember having knotted while standing before and had no idea it was even possible outside of a heat or rut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was already done.”

Ed snorts. “Not _that_. The separation. Is there a way to have that kind of sex without it? I thought I was gonna die a couple a times.”

“Still talking about the separation, I hope.”

“Sometimes I do think your dick is gonna kill me, but yeah,” Ed says, and Roy fights the urge to throw an arm over his face in response. Ed can’t see the heat in his cheeks from his current vantage point and it’s best to roll with it. “Literally was laying on the floor, in the fetal position, telling Al and Win I was dying.”

“You probably scared them.”

“For all of ten minutes. Then Grams finished making breakfast and I was fine.”

Roy isn’t sure whether to be happy Ed found relief from his withdrawal symptoms or offended that the relief was food. He settles for accepting it as a compliment. Ed holds him at the same level of food, and that’s certainly something.

“Is that what it’s like to be you all the time?” Ed asks. “All dramatic and sappy and shit?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Must be awful,” Ed says.

“I’ve found better ways to channel it my love, keeper of golden eyes, heart, and mind, each as brilliantly bright and enthralling as the other.”

Ed rolls onto his back and looks like he’s in pain. “Please stop or I _will_ throw up on you, I swear.”

“As you wish, dear,” Roy says, and doesn’t miss the twitch of Ed’s shoulder.

“What’d you do while we were gone?” Ed asks.

Roy wonders what ‘we’ means. Him and Al, him and the baby, or all three of them? Ed still gets flustered over being referred to as a unit of two.

“Wandered from room to room, mostly,” he answers. Partly out of melancholy, partly out of trying to figure out where they’re going to fit a baby in this increasingly full house.

Ed huffs. “Sounds like something you’d do.”

“I talked to Chris.”

Ed perks up at that. “Yeah?” he asks, hopeful, as if he’s not sure Roy is serious.

Roy hesitates. He isn’t sure whether or not he should tell Ed the story of the pregnant male omega, but decides it’s best left alone. “She misses you and Alphonse,” he tells him.

Ed sticks a metal elbow into Roy’s ribs and it makes his side jump. _“And?”_

“She took it very well. Better than she took us being together, honestly. She said no choice is easy, that nothing about this will be easy. But she’s here for us. And she really does miss you and your brother.”

“I miss her too.”

Roy splays a hand across Ed’s chest, feeling his heartbeat, the fill of his lungs. “How did Dr. Rockbell handle the news?”

Ed’s hand comes up to thread his. “Uh. Surprised.”

Roy casts him a suspicious glance. “Did you forcefully outsource the responsibility to your brother?”

“I did _not_ ,” Ed says defensively. “It was awful. Took me like, ten minutes to spit it out. You can ask him.”

Roy still isn’t sure if he believes him but decides to give Ed the benefit of the doubt.

“She just- didn’t say much,” Ed says. “It was a lot for her to take in, I think. Me being in a relationship at all was a shock. She still sees me as this twelve-year-old kid she tried her best to raise. Can’t blame her. I hardly ever visit.”

Roy doesn’t even want to know about Pinako’s reaction to him being the father. Nope. He can do without, at least for now. He has a feeling it’s going to catch up to him at some point.

“It was weird though,” Ed says softly. “She was surprised, at first. But then _so_ guilty. You know that face you make when you lie to Hawkeye?”

“I do _not-_ ”

“I’ve got a feeling she knows something,” Ed interrupts, tone so serious that Roy’s denial of such a trivial accusation dies on his lips. “She knows something, and she’s not talking.”

“Are you sure you’re not reading too far into it?” Roy asks, which is probably the case. After chickening out on telling both Al and Winry, Pinako is the first person Ed has personally broken the news to. He’d probably been excruciatingly nervous and more likely to see what wasn’t really there.

“I just don’t think so,” Ed says quietly. “It was…like _she’d_ made a mistake.” He pauses, squeezes Roy’s hand. “I dunno. Maybe you're right. Probably just figured she’d be angry, disappointed. Like Al. Like I should have known better.”

Which is still absurd, yet at the same time, understandable. The initial response to a surprise so out of the blue can’t be expected to be rational or sane.

Ed raises his automail hand and touches each of his fingers to his thumb. “She did lecture me for like, an hour about pregnancy and automail.”

“I suppose that’s better than being lectured about the alternative.”

Ed lets his hand fall back to the sheets. “Ha, yeah. After Al and Win freaking out, she was a breath of fresh air. Business as usual.”

Roy has a feeling Pinako and Chris would get along rather well, which is a good thing considering the chances of them meeting have skyrocketed.

“What did she have to say?” Roy asks.

“Same as the doctor. There isn’t much data – if any – on reattaching automail during pregnancy. So if I break it or something malfunctions, I’m pretty much SOL until after delivery.” Ed's flesh hand, still intertwined with Roy’s, grips a little tighter. “And, uh. Y’know how I’m in more pain in the winter, right?” Roy nods. “My usual painkillers are a no-go. Like, unless the pain is so fucking horrible I’m on the ground coughing up blood. And no anti-inflammatories. And no hot baths.”

Which are, of course, the only routes Ed has ever taken to ease the pain in cold weather. The idea of him being in pain and there being nothing Roy or anyone can do to ease it settles like a weight in his chest.

“So what _can_ you do?”

Ed shrugs helplessly. “Gran and Win said they’d try to figure something out,” he says, and then, “I’m sorry, in advance.”

“For what?”

“For how useless I’m going to be. And like, not just regular useless. Is there a step down from useless? ’cause that’s what I’m about to be.”

Roy strokes his thumb over Ed’s knuckles. “I think your brother said it best. ‘You are doing something very important right now.’ You’re growing an _entire_ other life, Ed. One that has the potential to run for seventy or more years. That’s incredible.”

Ed huffs. “It’s not like I’m actively hauling around these cells and hormones and shit. Theoretically I could just lay right here for the next six months and it would keep going without me. I’m just a toaster oven.”

Roy gives this some quiet consideration. _Theoretically_ , yes, Ed isn’t wrong. But it oversimplifies just how much he’s giving up to make this possible.

“Your body isn’t completely yours anymore. It’s going to become less yours by the day. You’re sacrificing your _literal_ freedom to stay hidden for a month now, and who knows how long later. You’re going to get uncomfortable, and bored, and-”

“And wish I’d decided to stay in Resembool?” Ed asks, softly and sudden, like he’s been reading Roy’s mind.

Roy pauses a moment. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t worried,” he admits.

Ed pulls his hand from Roy’s and uses it to cover his face. “I could never stay there,” he says. “Three women died during childbirth in Resembool while Al ’n I were growing up. _Three_. The only times I’ve seen Granny cry.” He drags his hand down his face, back down to Roy’s where he reknits their fingers tightly. “This is going to be one of the more dangerous things I’ve done. And I’m not going to tack on any more danger than I have to.”

It’s terrifying to think about, but he’s right. Pregnancy and childbirth _are_ dangerous. Things can go very wrong, very fast. They’re already immeasurably lucky as it is. If they make it out of this with zero complications, Roy may just start believing in miracles.

“Also I couldn’t handle being away from you,” Ed says, nuzzling his face into Roy’s arm, pressing his lips to his bicep. “It’s like every second I’m just itching for this.”

“Thank you for coming home,” Roy says.

“Always will,” Ed whispers.

It’s amazing how much apprehension those two little words spark. How Roy wishes, more than anything, that they could be definitive.

As if knowing how loaded of a statement that was, Ed sits up and tugs at the pillowcase under Roy’s head. “Now get up. I need to fix this shit.”

“Right this second?”

“You’ve gone an fucked it all up,” Ed says, reaching over him to reclaim a pillow for his own side of the bed. He pauses, leans in to sniff it, then looks at Roy with suspicion. “Did you even wash the sheets while I was gone?”

Roy does not answer. Ed looks at him like he’s something dirty, and not in the good way.

“That’s _so_ gross. Get up.”

Roy drags himself to his feet, takes two steps, and lays down right there on the rug next to the bed. It’s not too bad down here. He’s got a lovely view of Ed’s bare ass and legs as he moves around the bed yanking off the sheets. He sighs and closes his eyes, listening to the soft swishes of linen. When all goes quiet, he opens them again and looks up to Ed standing over him with an armload of sheets and pillowcases, looking deeply unamused.

“Can’t change sheets. Can’t walk three steps to the chair. How lazy are you?”

Roy is quite content with Ed not realizing he hadn’t changed the sheets because Ed’s lingering scent was all that helped him sleep alone at night, so he doesn’t argue. “Very, it would seem,” he answers.

“Damn right,” Ed says, then opens his arms, effectively burying Roy beneath a pile of discarded bed linens that still smell just like him.

 

 

Al doesn’t come home that night, which isn’t that strange considering how late it had already been when their train got in. Roy assumes he’ll be back by the time he gets home from work and eagerly accepts Ed’s invitation to have him bent over the breakfast bar the next morning while the coffee brews. It’s well worth the second shower and arriving at the office without a minute to spare.

He gets more done in one day than he has during all the days of Ed’s absence and the team is clearly a little disturbed by his sudden 180. He catches them staring at him in various levels of confusion, both individually and in every group combination possible. Hawkeye, true to her name, doesn’t seem to take her eyes off of him. They still don’t ask so he doesn’t tell, or even allow them to think he notices. He’s going to string them along for as long as they allow.

While walking home he stops by Ed’s favorite sandwich shop to grab dinner. Between the omega’s stomach not having quite settled and the stress of travel and separation, Ed still doesn’t have much of an appetite to speak of. Roy gets him something rather unassuming compared to his usual order but hopes it’ll be enough to entice him. Every meal he’s able to keep down feels like a victory.

When he arrives home, he sheds his shoes and coat in the foyer, noting Al’s bedroom door is still shut as he walks down the hall. When he gets to the kitchen Ed is the only one to greet him. He’s reclaimed the table for his research, books and papers spread over every available surface. The sunlight from the window behind him illuminates his silhouette, playing off the waves of his loose hair and threatening to take Roy’s breath away before he can even manage a hello.

Ed looks up and smiles when he sees it’s Roy, but it’s forced, and he doesn’t even acknowledge the arrival of dinner. Something is off, and Roy has a feeling it has to do with his brother’s prolonged absence.

“Heya,” Ed greets. “How was your day?”

“Oddly short despite the fact that all eyes seemed to be on me.” Roy sets the paper bag containing their dinner on the breakfast bar counter - which, amusingly but thankfully, smells like bleach - and shrugs his way out of his uniform jacket. “And you?” he asks as he drapes it over one of the bar stools.

Ed shrugs. “Quiet.”

“Is Alphonse still not home?”

“He, uh…might be gone a little longer,” Ed says, slowly, and most definitely guiltily.

Roy gives pause. The sudden thought that Al might not have come back to Central at all – that Ed very well could have made the journey alone and exposed – ignites a spark of fear and anger within him. “Did he come back with you at all?” he demands.

Ed gives him a look of disbelief. “Of course he did,” he says. “He really is at Gracia’s, swear it. And he's not saying a thing about anything, so don't start harping about that, either.”

Roy relaxes a fraction. He ought to know Al better than that, and his human brain _does_ , it really does, his alpha has just been so loud and impulsive as of late. But there’s still the pressing issue of Al’s non-appearance, and Roy has a feeling there’s a story there.

“And he hasn’t come home yet because…” He lets the sentence hang, hoping Ed will fill in the blank.

Ed rubs a page of his book between his fingers and won’t meet Roy's eyes. “’cause he’s pissed at me,” he finally confesses.

The brothers being at odds isn’t rare; they are siblings, after all. It isn’t unheard of for them to have disagreements that leave them peeved for days on end, but this is the first time Roy remembers Al being so angry at Ed he can’t even be in the same house as him.

Even if his absence wasn’t a direct offer to desecrate their home’s living spaces, Roy will still stand by Al being wonderful. He got to do Ed over the back of the couch last night and again over the kitchen counter that morning, and that’s the kind of thing one just doesn’t take for granted.

Ed turns the page he’s been fussing with. “Winry’s mad at me too, so…yeah.”

“I don’t understand how you think that helps you,” Roy says flatly.

Ed’s eyes meet his and narrow. “Because it’s not my fault they’re both driving me nuts about baby stuff,” he snaps.

Ah. That would do it.

Leaving their dinner for the time being, Roy pulls out the chair opposite of Ed and takes a seat. It’s then that he notices Ed isn’t just reading, he’s actually taking _notes_ , a pen and notepad tucked under the cover of the book he’s fiddling with. Something about that catches at his heart.

“Are they angry about the same thing?” he asks.

“Not…exactly,” Ed says. “Al defended me against her irrationalities, if _that_ helps.”

Roy stares at him, unconvinced.

Ed’s eyes flick to his. He sighs. “She kept bringing up the baby, and I didn’t wanna fucking talk about it. I get that she’s excited, but it’s, like…not a shared sentiment, to that extent,” he says, then tacks on a hasty, “yet.”

It’s difficult hearing Ed admit this, but it also doesn’t come as a surprise. Roy’s known this since the day they found out: Ed is in denial, of some form or another. And Roy can’t blame him. Three weeks ago their lives had been on entirely different trajectories. Being ripped from them so suddenly was bound to cause some whiplash.

“And she got all hurt when I told her to knock it off,” Ed says. “And yeah, I might’ve been a little rude about it, but Al backed me up and got her off my back.”

“So why is Al still not here?”

Ed worries at his lower lip, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, talking about anything else, but he gives in without much wait. “I mentioned going back to work and apparently he assumed we would just be on lab work for a year or whatever, but when I told him we would be back out on the field right away, he freaked.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you and I already talked about it.”

Which may be true, but they haven’t touched the subject since the night they’d decided to go all-in, and Roy realizes he doesn’t know how much time Ed plans to take off after the baby comes. He has a year and a half at his disposal; at least six months will be devoted to seeing this pregnancy through, who knows how many months of recovery after the birth, and at that point it will be up to Ed to decide if he wants the full amount of time or not.

He hopes Ed will use it. But he knows he won’t.

“Are you willing to talk about it some more?” Roy asks carefully.

Ed tenses, hands balling into fists as he stares hard at the table. “You said-”

“I know what I said,” Roy tells him. “And I haven’t changed my mind. But we didn’t discuss it much further than that, and I wouldn’t mind doing so.”

Ed doesn’t say anything. Everything about his body language suggests that if Roy wants to talk about it so badly then he’s going to have to row the boat.

“When do you plan on going back?” Roy asks.

“As soon as possible,” is the reply he isn’t hoping to hear, and the one Ed gives. “A year is the earliest I can go without raising suspicion. Six months till they can yank this kid out. Two months to recover from it. Four months to get back in shape.”

Of course Ed would already have this planned out, counting down the days until he can go back to work like most people wait for the day they leave for vacation. It isn’t fair of Roy to compare the two - this will be anything but a vacation for Ed – and he feels guilty as soon as the thought crosses his mind.

“If Al is upset about immediately returning to the field – and you are, for the most part, doing this for Al – what would be the issue in slowing down?” he asks.

Ed’s jaw works. He closes his book and smooths his hand over the cover, tracing the outline of the pregnant figure on the cover. “How much does a baby notice, really?” he asks softly. “Maybe notice isn’t the right word. Remember. How much of being a baby do you remember?”

“Nothing,” Roy is forced to say. Sometimes he thinks he remembers. Glimpses of ceilings, feelings of soft blankets, a gentle voice that could belong to anyone. But nothing concrete, and more likely from his toddler years, if they even happened at all.

“I didn’t start remembering things until I was two,” Ed tells him. “And even those memories aren’t much. By three my memory was in full swing. And then our father left.” He pauses and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to wait long enough for them to remember me leaving.”

His honest answer is bitter and leaves Roy feeling cold. This isn’t something that can be scienced around, not something that can be measured and weighed and neatly calculated with a formula. It just isn’t possible to say from what ages a child would be best off without one of their parents, let alone to factor in that parent may well be risking their life during their absences.

 _What if it’s all for nothing_? Roy wants to ask. _What if you spend these years chasing your tail, when you could have spent them with your child? Will you spend your entire life searching while they grow up without you?_

But he can’t. He can’t say that because no amount of time given to Al will ever be a waste or better spent, and Ed already wears his guilt more heavily than he does his automail. He’s tried his hardest to take what little data his life experience and this situation have given him and make sense of it the best he can, and he can’t be faulted for that.

“Are you worried about being like your father?” Roy asks, very well knowing the territory he’s toeing is a field of hot coals.

Ed rolls his eyes with a grimace.

“Ed-”

“Can we not right now?” Ed says, eyes averted, face flushed.

Roy heeds his request and goes quiet. This is a demon they’ll need to confront eventually, but they have plenty of time and – with the reminder growing steadily beneath Ed’s clothes – opportunities to do so. This situation has already put Ed through so much turmoil, especially in the past week alone. Roy is okay with planting the seed and backing off for now.

But Ed surprises him, seems to even surprise himself as he blurts out “I just-” and then cuts himself off, eyes wide, the remaining air in his lungs leaving him in a rush.

Roy waits. Ed holds his gaze until he bows his head, loose hair slipping over his shoulders, bangs falling into his face to shroud him from view. “If anything happens to me, I want it to happen before they can remember.”

Which is even more heartbreaking than just not wanting their child to remember he ever left. Roy can feel the pain of it written all over his face, filling his voice as he asks, “Why wouldn’t you want them to remember you?”

“I know the pain of remembering.”

“And I know the pain of not remembering,” Roy tells him quietly.

Ed does not look up. Doesn’t answer. And then his shoulders heave.

Roy slips from his chair and quietly steps around the table, coming up behind Ed, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and tucking his face into his neck. Ed’s wearing his patches – they decided it would best, safest, to keep the obvious scent of pregnancy from permeating the whole house – but even though Roy can’t smell Ed’s distress, he can feel every ounce of it in the tautness of his body.

Roy hugs him tighter, and Ed’s hands come up to grip his forearms.

“Maybe some things aren’t worth remembering - some people definitely aren’t,” Roy whispers. “But you, Ed? You are.”

“Stop,” Ed chokes.

“It’s true.”

A shiver wracks through Ed's body, jolting his shoulders and stuttering his breath. “ _D_ _ammit_ , Roy,” he whispers, letting go of Roy’s arms to swipe his shirt sleeves across his face. “You can’t just say stuff like that. I’m too hormonal for this shit.”

Roy continues to hold him and be the steady, quiet comfort he needs. Gradually Ed relaxes, his breathing evens out, and his shoulders drop.

Roy presses a kiss to the hair covering Ed’s temple. “I’m sorry for upsetting you,”

Ed takes a deep, shaky breath. “It’s- fine. It’s fine.”

Even though it’s not fine. Nothing about it is fine. But there’s not really a way to make it fine, either. Bringing up and processing these uncertainties and fears leaves no guarantee whatever is left behind will be any better. This – Ed in his arms – is as close as he can get. And he doesn't let him go.

Eventually Ed brings a hand to the side of Roy’s head, pressing their temples together. Roy wishes it could be as easy as this to read his mind.

“So,” Ed says, voice rough. “What’s for dinner?”

 

 

Roy opts to stay up late after he sees to Ed being tucked securely into their nest. He’d been too preoccupied pining over Ed's absence to read any of the books that were left behind, but he needs to start catching up at some point, and what better time to do that than when he's too restless for anything else?

He makes himself some tea and claims the chair Ed had been sitting in earlier. He eyes Ed’s cast-aside notebook, its worn black cover closed with a pen tossed on top, and wonders at what could be written inside. Knowing Ed, there's hardly a possibility it contains anything other than barely legible shorthand jottings. Still, even with it laying out in the open and with nothing to stop him, Roy can’t bring himself to open it. If they are notes, he can learn all the same by reading on his own. And if they aren't, he would feel invasive at best for finding out.

He starts at page one of the book Ed had been reading, quickly realizes his mistake, and leafs past the first few chapters. He very much understands how the baby was made, thanks. No explanations or diagrams necessary.

He settles in to scrounge up whatever information he can find that hadn't previously been forced upon him via Maes's tendency to overshare. He never thought he would be grateful for those moments. There's so much he would give just to listen to everything all over again.

He's drained his mug of tea and lost track of time by the point he hears the front door open and the soft clanking of Al’s footsteps enter. He keeps an eye on the doorway Al will have to pass on the way to his room, and greets him during his attempt to stealthily tip toe by.

“Welcome back, Alphonse,” he says, and Al jumps so high his head completely clears the doorway. Thank the builders for tall ceilings.

Al whips around to face him and brings a hand to his chest plate. “ _Geez_ ,” he says. “Let me tell you, I swear I can still feel my heart skip a beat sometimes.”

“Sorry to startle you.”

“I saw the lights but didn’t expect anyone to actually be up. It’s almost midnight.”

Roy looks at the clock hanging over the doorway and blinks. That would explain why his eyes are burning. “So it is.”

“Would you mind some company?”

Roy gives him a tired smile. “Not at all.”

He assumed Al was carrying his and Ed's suitcase, but instead it’s a metal box a little bit shorter and twice as wide, and Roy is quick to rearrange the book buffet to make room for it. It has a collapsible handle at the top, clasps around the bottom, and the kitchen table creaks beneath its weight. The metal is tarnished by a large scorch mark across its side.

Al unlatches the clasps and lifts the lid to reveal a sewing machine head. It’s beautiful. Its sleek black background is decorated with ornate, swooping gold designs and bouquets of small red and blue flowers. It also looks hardly used, if not brand new. Al is apparently taking his role as Ed Occupier very seriously.

“It was our mother’s,” he explains, setting the cover on the floor before carefully taking a seat in front of the machine. “Apparently a few things survived the fire. Winry dug it out and they kept it for us.”

“How nice of them,” Roy says, in earnest. It couldn’t have been an easy thing to accomplish, physically or emotionally.

“I’m surprised it also survived Winry, to be honest,” Al laughs. “It was still considered pretty new at the time and I’ll bet she was itching to take it apart.” He lifts and lowers the presser foot, gives a spin to the balance wheel, twists a knob or two. “Needs a little tune up. And neither of us knows how to use it. But I figured you wouldn’t mind having it here.”

“Of course not.”

“The fire did take the treadle table. Gracia said she’s going to find us one and teach us how to use it.”

Gracia, who has taken up part-time, in-home work as a seamstress, will without a doubt be an excellent teacher. But the idea of Ed using a sewing machine is slightly alarming, and not only because Roy expects to come home to find Ed has sewn the shirt on his back to his current project, or the curtains unintentionally jamming the machine. Just when he thought there would be a period of time where Ed would be forced to dress like a normal human, the textile gods reopen their doors to beckon him in with bolts of leather, pointy metal studs, and decorative skulls.

“Well, at least teach _me_ , anyway,” Al clarifies. “Ed wasn’t thrilled about the whole thing, so I’m not sure he’ll want anything to do with it. But we’re going to have so much free time.” He sighs. “I have to try.”

Roy would have breathed a sigh of relief, appealed by the prospect of Ed dressing in soft shirts and lounge pants, but Al is right. Without alchemy, Ed will need _something_ to fill the massive stretch of empty days looming before him, and if that something just so happens to allow his unique taste in fashion to continue to flourish, then so be it.

“He might just still be mad at me,” Al says, running a one of his gloved hands over the machine head. “In any case, I hope he comes around.”

Roy tilts his head, perplexed. “Were you not the one angry with him?”

“We were both angry. In his defense I shouldn’t have pushed the subject. Winry already had him agitated, and if I’m completely honest with myself, it’s not something I have a say in.” 

“You’re a part of this family,” Roy tells him. “And Ed’s only traveling partner. It’s understandable, if not expected, for you to have some input.”

Al’s shoulders creak with his shrug. “I appreciate the sentiment, but the pack dynamic is changing. You two are the parents, and my opinion will never weigh equally. Theoretically when he goes back out on the field I could refuse to follow him, but we both know he wouldn’t care. I can’t let him go out there alone.”

“There’s plenty of time for him to change his mind.”

Al looks at him, and Roy knows exactly what kind of expression he would be using. He can just feel the hard stare and raised eyebrow. “I hope you’re not expecting him to.”

The corner of Roy’s mouth lifts. “Not really, no.”

Al gives the sewing machine’s balance wheel another spin, and they both watch as it gradually slows and comes to a stop.

“Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but what about you?” Al asks. “How do you feel about it?”

Roy feels sympathy for Ed, who just several hours earlier had been in the same chair, staring at the same book, feeling the same apprehension.

“I want your brother to be happy,” he says.

“At the cost of your own happiness?”

Roy folds his arms and settles them on top of the book before him. “What will make me happy is being a family. An unconventional one, perhaps, but the rest of the pieces can fall where they may.”

“And what if _you_ change _your_ mind?”

“I don’t see that ever happening,” he answers without hesitation.

Al observes him for a moment, and then sighs. “I believe it. You and Brother have always been so much alike.”

“So we’ve been told.”

“And still neither one of you will admit it.”

Roy blinks innocently. “Admit what?”

“Har har.” Al reaches down and lifts the metal cover from the floor, gently placing it back over the machine and resetting the clasps. He pushes his chair back and stands, and Roy expects that to be the end of the conversation. But Al pauses.

“I wasn’t surprised when he told me it was you he'd been seeing, you know. And to be honest? It was a relief. There are so few people in this world who can really understand him. I was glad he found one to keep. I still am, even if the circumstances have never been ideal.”

Roy smiles ruefully. “Even after what we’ve gotten ourselves into?”

“ _Especially_ with what you’ve gotten yourselves into,” Al says. “This is going to be terrifying, and I don’t think there’s even a word to describe how difficult, but in the end we’re all going to be grateful everything came together to make it happen.”

Roy hopes he’s correct. He’s going to have to make himself believe it, willing or not, or the stress is going to eat him alive.

Al runs his hand over the scorch mark on the metal case, as if soothing a wound. “I can’t wait to sew some things for the baby,” he says sweetly, which makes Roy smile. “Do you think black is unisex?”

Roy's face falls. Al laughs.

“Just kidding,” he says, which offers brief reprieve. “But if you think Brother isn’t going to attempt to dress this baby in head to toe black, you should start mentally preparing now.”

Roy immediately pictures a toddler with their shared features wearing Ed’s trademark black and red attire. He fades back into despondence, and Al laughs again.

 

 

The rest of the week bumbles by without much excitement on the home front. Ed and Al resume their usual rapport with no evidence that there had been any sort of falling out in the first place. Roy is grateful knowing Ed has someone to keep him company - keep him _safe_ \- while he's at the office, even if it means he and Ed have to give up their brief window of carefree, as-public-as-public-gets trysts. It was fun while it lasted, reminiscent of the early days where they were lucky to ever make it upstairs on the first try. Frankly though it's a lot of work, and the aftermath is so much easier to deal with in the comfort of their room, so Roy isn't all that upset about it. That doesn't stop he and Ed from making eyes and exchanging coy little smiles whenever they're in the vicinity of the furnishings they'd violated. That ought to last them awhile.

Not knowing what to do with the sewing machine for the time being – aside from looking at it and poking at some of the bits – Al leaves it in its case and sets it in a corner of the great room. Ed continues to pretend it doesn’t exist and, either having already read all of his books from the library or just being plain sick of the subject matter, buries himself in Roy’s library. They don’t discuss anything remotely related to babies, though Ed dutifully takes his vitamins every morning and nods off with Roy’s hand curled protectively around his belly every night without complaint.

Roy makes it through the rest of the work week clinging by a thread. The team seems to have put him under constant surveillance, and he tries to keep his behavior as inconspicuous as possible, but it’s no use. Once they catch wind of him putting in a request for a permanent personal vehicle they lose all sense of stealth, like they’re so desperate to figure out what he’s hiding they forget to hide their attempts to investigate. He shuts down their leading questions and hovers over them when the notebook they all seem to be sharing makes an appearance.

When he’s not on the offense, Roy waits on pins and needles for them to make their move. He hasn’t brought up the topic of telling them with Ed yet, and he still doesn't feel right about doing it without him. He’s been meaning to find the time, but Ed has been skittish about anything to do with his pregnancy or the product of it and Roy is trying his damndest to buy them a little more time. He’s made his peace with feigning illness and sacrificing more PTO if it comes down to it.

He’s certain his only saving grace is an unexpected meeting Friday afternoon that keeps him busy until the team has to cut their losses and head home for the weekend without him. When he reenters the empty office to collect his coat and keys, it finally strikes him how alone he's been these past few weeks. How far he's pushed back those who just want to know what's happening so they can figure out what they need to do to help him. How much worry he's sown in the people who already worry enough.

He remains at his desk in the dark for some time after the fact, head cradled in his hands, knowing that the time of keeping this secret has likely run out. Knowing it _has_ to be told, and that it _will_ be okay, but still wishing, more than anything, that Maes was here. Not just to ease his loneliness, or back him up when he takes this leap of faith, but to guide him through everything that's to come.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tw](https://twitter.com/butbythegrace1) | [tu](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com)


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